Malls the new fad despite poor sales

HYDERABAD: The city of pearls may well become the city of multiplexes and malls in the coming years.
Multiplexes and malls are now set to dot the twincities'' landscape.
Like any industry, there is intense competition in the real estate sector. "Presently we are witnessing a mall development phase in this business," an MCH official said.
"So far,we really can''t say that there is anything more than one mall — MPM Mall at Abids.At least 10 more such malls and multiplexes would be coming up all over the city in another two years," the official said.
Banjara Hills alone will have at least four malls with more than one to three lakh square feet floor area, the official said. At least four malls will come up on Begumpet road, he said.
''Expo-city'' with a floor area of 1,30,000 square is all set to start its activities at Lower Tankbund Road within a year. However, the experience of malls in Mumbai shows that average revenue is falling. Similar is the experience in Ahmedabad where there are too many multiplexes and most of them lying vacant.
Hyderabadis got the habit of aping Mumbaiites and so now there are many entrepreneurs jumping on to the mall bandwagon. Everyone wants to do the same thing at the same time, the official said.
It is surprising why the government is giving permission, though malls and multiplexes are planned right in the heart of the city where there is already scarcity of parking place.
While builders continue to cut short on parking space, the problem is further aggravated with corrupt officials.
"Planning, building and running a mall is very specialised project. What we are seeing here is that a lot of people in the business are without any prior experience or competence," Adsumilli Raghu Vasu, a city builder said.
Already, a couple of small malls in Abids are having problem in selling space and attracting shoppers. The way to go about would be to plan further development in the suburbs which is where future growth options exist, he said.
Malls should focus more on areas with lower real estate value and provide better facilities like larger floor sizes instead of small plots with too many floors and escalators, more parking, easy connectivity to Multi Modal Transit System (MMTS) stations among others, he added.
"I think there are some government rules that encourage malls in the garb of tourism projects. If so, they need to be withdrawn because there is really no way a mall which sells low end stuff can be a tourism attraction," a senior MCH official said.