Alto Palermo

Alto Palermo is a shopping center located in the Palermo neighborhood of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Opened in 1990, it was one of the first shopping malls in the country after Spinetto and Unicenter shoppings (both opened in 1988).

Built with Argentine and Chilean capital, it belongs to "APSA Centros Comerciales", a subsidiary of holding company IRSA, with minority participation of the Chilean group Parque Arauco S.A., which already operated establishments of this type since 1982 in that country. The shopping was designed by the Juan Carlos López y Asociados Studio, which had a long experience in commercial architecture.

The shopping center has 190 stores, a food court for 730 seated people and 670 covered parking spaces. The center also has free Wi-Fi in all its facilities.

Style
Alto Palermo was one of the first shopping centers in the city of Buenos Aires, and was the work of the Juan Carlos López y Asociados studio of architects, dedicated especially to undertakings of this type, a pioneer in the field of shopping centers in Argentina and successful in other similar projects of the 1990s (such as the Patio Bullrich, the Galerías Pacífico and the Soleil Factory).3

It is an urban mall, since it is not located in a suburban area in the style of North American malls, where the essential means of transportation to access is the car, through a highway. Alto Palermo is located in one of the most populated neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, and just over four kilometers from the city's microcenter. It is surrounded by a residential neighborhood with high density and high purchasing power, and a traditional commercial axis such as Avenida Santa Fe.

Previously, the site of the shopping center was occupied by the factory of the Palermo brewery, founded in 1897. It was a large industrial building that occupied a large area, which allowed the new Alto Palermo to have an extension of 200 meters above the axis of Coronel Diaz Avenue. With the construction of the mall, Arenales street was opened, which passes under it.

Alto Palermo is organized along a main axis, which is parallel to Avenida Coronel Díaz, but slightly curved. This central circulation occupies the three levels of the mall, and has a glass roof that provides natural light. The galleries of the various floors face the large central space, generating a sensation of great spaciousness. At the two ends of this main axis are the vertical circulation cores, which include escalators arranged in a circular fashion, and elevators that circulate through independent structures with walkways that connect them to the successive levels.

Refurbishment
During 2008, Alto Palermo underwent a general aesthetic renovation, and its logo received a new image, created by the Fileni & Fileni Design studio, at the same time that the motto "Passion of women" was coined.

The building was completely refurbished, seeking greater sobriety in keeping with the tastes of the moment: its colorful and metallic coatings were replaced by the monochromatism of marble and imitation granite, decorative interior objects were eliminated (such as the aluminum palm trees that flanked the main circulation and various ornaments), and the appearance of the roundabout of the food court on Arenales street, which was completely glazed and was reduced to three large windows, was completely changed.

During these renovations all the plants and small green spaces provided for in the original plans were removed. The works were designed by Apsa Centros Comerciales in conjunction with the Pavlik Design studio, and the new Alto Palermo was inaugurated on May 29, 2008.

In June 2010, an 8×5 m LED screen was installed at the access on Avenida Santa Fe.

Public transport access
The Line D's Bulnes station of the Buenos Aires Underground is located just below the shopping center; moreover, one of the exits directly connects the mall through a ground floor of it.

On the other hand, there are several colectivos that run through the area, including 12, 29, 39, 64, 68, 92, 111, 128, 152 and 194 lines.