The mall merrier

From no mall in 1999 to over a hundred this year, the mall business has been an undulating graph of hits and misses

Mall rats may find this hard to believe and a generation weaned on Sunday evening recreation equals to malls, might stop in wonder but in the year 1999, Mumbai had zero malls.

One can only remember the hype and hoopla when Mumbai was all set to join other nations in the mall-o-sphere. The first mall arrived in the city in 2000-01.

Named Cross Roads it was located at Tardeo near Haji Ali.

Some controversy and traffic problems notwithstanding, Cross Roads became an integral part of the Mumbaikar's psyche and the city's identity.



Since then and now, the number of malls in 2009 increased to approximately 128 of which nearly 20-25 malls are functional, nearly 60 are under construction whereas the rest either are not fully occupied or are defunct.

According to real estate sources, the years 2004-2007 spelt the mall market boom. It was Inorbit mall that made an impact in the mall market.

According to Pankaj Kapoor, MD, Liases Foras, a real estate rating and real estate consultancy firm, Inorbit mall, Nirmal Lifestyle mall and Phoenix changed the scenario in the mall market.

"The reason behind the growth of the three malls are because they were not crowded with only shops but had space for the common public to hang around and socialise," said Kapoor.

Caught up in the mall wave, almost every builder started making a mall and soonu00a0u00a0 there was more supply than demand.

Then came a period when there were literally no takers for malls. Most of the shops in malls were being turned into office spaces.

The rentals were falling drastically.u00a0 Presently, though, sanity seems to
have returned and the scene is better.

In 2009, Mumbai's first mall, Cross Roads that had closed down after Phoenix at Lower Parel came up, reinvented itself as Kishore Biyani's Sobo Central.

Sobo Central has created a rather unique structure in which it has done away with shops within the mall.
u00a0
Instead, each retailer has hanger or shelf space, a new way of designing a mall. This proves that entrepreneurs are looking at ways in which they could get the most mileage out of their mall ventures.