A developer does not equal to a successful mall

How many malls are coming up in the Klang Valley? I have already lost track. However, I did share in an earlier article. Read here: Even more new malls coming up in Klang Valley  My colleagues were discussing about buying a condo which is connected to a mall. He said these condos would fetch a premium in the future. Well, I believe the chance of it being higher priced than another condo without a connecting mall is higher. However, this is not a guarantee.
The reason I say so is simple. Operating a mall versus building a mall are two different things altogether. When I was still staying in Kelana Jaya, I got to know about the SStwo mall. It was supposed to be a right-sized mall for the neighbourhood. First impression was not good. The number of shops open were few for my acceptance, car park was expensive considering it has just opened and the types of shops were really not attractive enough. I told my wife that this mall may not survive long because it was in the middle of Paradigm Mall and Tropicana City Mall. Alas, today SStwo mall is undergoing a rebranding and rebuilding. Even Tropicana City Mall would be taken over by CapitaMalls after showing some signs that it’s visitors are going down especially when compared to Paradigm Mall.
The same thing happened in Penang. Penang Times Square was built by a well-known Penang developer but this mall has never reached any standard deemed acceptable until today. Compare that to Queensbay Mall which is going from strength to strength and even Gurney Mall which continue to be doing exceptionally well even after Paragon Mall was opened just a stone’s throw away. In fact if you ask me to rate the two, I would prefer Gurney Mall instead. These three malls either have residential units nearby, next to and above them. Which do I think deserves to be priced higher? Of course the one I love the most. 🙂
Always take caution if the mall which is to be built is by a developer who has never been known to operate a mall successfully before. Any mall operator would have sufficient connections to many retailers of which some would have already been following them for years. New mall operators meanwhile would have to start everything from scratch and may just not have the clout or experience to get these brands in. Furthermore, the management of the mall would be vital because there are new malls for which I still find the car parks not well lit and there are even malls where the baby rooms are so limited and the toilets are DIRTY.
Thus, before you buy that unit and pay a premium for it, do ask a few more questions. It helps because if you were to buy a residential unit in a mall where there are very few shops opened, I seriously do not think it deserves a premium pricing. In fact, because of such negative environment, the types of retail outlets which will survive would be those which you MAY NOT WANT in a mall. Happy researching.
written on 17 May 2015
Next suggested article: KLIA’s new mall, the Mitsui Outlet Park.