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Posted Jun 15, 2007, 2:17 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 917
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Here is a repost of news on Mall boom
Quote:
Malls and plazas to dot Kochi’s landscape soon
Big shopping malls will, in the coming years, transform Kochi’s landscape and the lifestyle of a growingly affluent section of its inhabitants. SHYAMA RAJAGOPAL takes a look at the malls that are in the offing.
Kochi is all set to enter the era of big shopping malls. The new shopping trends which have caught on in a big way in other cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore will form a part of city life in Kochi too. The trends were visible as shopping complexes became bigger and bigger and supermarkets began to increasingly dot the city centres.
While Mahatma Gandhi Road, perhaps, has the most footfalls in the city on any working day, the big shopping malls that are going to dot the National Highway 47 bypass will definitely create a change in the manner in which one goes shopping. New entertainment options will open up.
Shopping malls in metro cities have completely changed the lifestyle of the urban folk, who flock the malls with multiplexes and food courts to spend an evening. A one-stop shopping place with most of the leading brands available under one roof is one of the major attraction of the big shopping malls, said C.Y.A. Razack, marketing manager of Mall O, which will be one of the first such malls to be opened in the city.
Coming up on the bypass road at Edappally, Mall O is expected to be a launch-pad for the Reliance group for its speciality store, Mr. Razak said. The group will be taking up 84,000 sq. feet of the area on three floors out of the 3,64,000 sq. ft available in the complex.
Shopping plaza
A shopping plaza by the Dubai-based Oberon group will have a garment and lifestyle products showroom and a mini hypermarket at the mall. A central glass atrium will be the focal point of the mall, where most of the promotional events will take place. All the floors will have a view into the atrium, Mr. Razak said.
There will be 14 escalators and five elevators in the mall to walk across a total of five floors, including the ground, with a spread of about 50,000 sq. ft on each floor. Safe parking spaces are one of the major facilities that attract people to shopping malls. At Mall O, there will be space to park 450 cars in two basement sections, Mr. Razak said.
A crowd of customers at the food courts in the malls will, perhaps, spell the success of the shopping malls. It will definitely be the main attraction, as the idea is to tap the urban lifestyle of combining shopping and eating out.
One of the major projects likely to dot the National Highway is the Lulu Shopping Mall. Lulu is a well-known name in the State, what with a strong NRI population familiar with the malls promoted by the Dubai-based M.K. Group.
Though the project is yet to kick-off physically, as it awaits Government nod, it will, perhaps, be one of the largest malls here. Spread over about 17 acres of land, the shopping plaza will have five-star hotels too in the 15 lakh square feet area spread over the ground, first and second floors at Edappally.
A 12-kitchen food court with an expected seating capacity of 3000 people and a seven-screen multiplex to accommodate more than 1,500 people will, perhaps, be a big lure for customers. There will be small halls with a seating capacity of 50, as also halls with a larger capacity.
Lulu is expected to open its own hypermarket with about two lakh square feet area, besides catering to five anchor shops that will be at least 30,000 sq. ft in area. Some of the big brand names are likely to pick up space in the mall, which will be able to accommodate 3,000 cars in its parking space on the surface and basement areas.
Atkins, a U.K.-based company, is said to be the architects of the commercial space that will have more than an escalator and an elevator. A travellator or a moving walkway that can carry a shopping cart will be a new facility at this mall.
Another mall on which work has already begun is the Gold Souk, again on the bypass road. This shopping bonanza from a Gurgaon-based company, Aerens Gold Souk International Ltd., is expected to be opened towards the end of next year.
According to M. Mohan Varma, resident director of the project, the company is planning to open 100 gold souks in 100 cities across the country in 100 months. Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur and Kozhikode will be among the cities, he added.
While work is going on at Jaipur and Ludhiana, besides Kochi, the souks in Amritsar and Chennai and Mohali will start soon. The Kochi souk will have a lower ground floor, a ground floor and five floors with a total area of 4 lakh sq. ft. on 2.43 acres of land.
While the food court is expected to bring in families, a discotheque is likely to bring in the young crowd. “We would be having a bowling alley too apart from a hypermarket, jewellery showrooms, wedding showrooms and textile showrooms,” Mr. Varma said. A high-end lifestyle shop will be a main attraction here, he added.
Though the showrooms will be leased out, the company will take up managing events in the mall, with a frequency of at least one every month. The events are likely to the USP of the mall, with celebrities from across the country taking part in some event or the other, Mr. Varma said. At Gold Souk, the parking area will be on the third, fourth and the fifth floors. A ramp and car lift will be provided to make parking and taking away the car easy. There will be space to park 400 cars, Mr. Varma said.
A number of other malls are also being planned here. Some of the major among them are the ones promoted by DLF and the Peevees group.
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