Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/513366
lenty of attention has been paid lately to india's failed malls, with some formerly swanky properties seeming to become vir- tual retail graveyards, while others have actually been turned into office parks or even hospitals. a few savvy developers, though, have gotten the formula right, and their shopping centers are shining beacons of success. P Retail palaCes Some Spectacularly SucceSSful SHoppING projectS belIe INdIa'S reputatIoN aS a Graveyard for mallS By Spencer Rumsey j u N e 2 0 1 5 / S C T 45 no more than a fourth of the malls in india are making money, according to Forbes India maga- zine, though pankaj Renjhen, Jll's managing director of retail services in india, pegs the figure at less than 20 percent. "Most indian malls started in 2000 and 2001," said Renjhen, "but most developers did not really understand what a mall was and what was required in the essential ingre- dients: the tenant mix; where the tenants should be placed; and what the mix required. planning was a new story for them. design was a challenge as well." yet another problem, he says, is that most indian developers sold the individual spaces to mul- tiple investors. "you could own one store, i could own the next store, and the next one was owned by someone else," Renjhen said. "they lost control of the mix. there was no leasing strategy." it is a completely different story, however, at what he and others consider to be india's three best-performing malls: bangalore's 650,000-square-foot forum (a property of prestige Group), Mumbai's 300,000-square-foot palladium (phoenix Mills) and new delhi's 1.3 million-square- foot select Citywalk (select Group). the three have a few things in common, Renjhen says: they have not sold off space to the retailers; they are keeping the customer experience uppermost; and they are constantly on top of changes in fashion and taste. "select Citywalk was one of the first to look at what kind of tenant mix was in place," said Ren- jhen. for that approach, he credits arjun sharma, its co-founder and director. "sharma planned it well, put in the right tenants and put in the softer things, like a concierge service for the first time in india." sharma has his take on it. "We don't treat this center as a real estate project," said sharma.