5 years, 5 malls, can market still absorb?

Many months ago, when Quill City mall was opened, a colleague remarked that this mall should not last long. His reasoning was because Quill City Mall was too near to the established and bigger ones in Bukit Bintang. Besides, the crowd during weekend would definitely be slow and many businesses may not last long enough to be profitable. In fact parking after 5pm as well as during the weekends were FREE. One can only see how ‘desperate’ the mall is   , right? Well, Quill City Mall is still growing today. The FREE car parks were no longer available, not even during the supposedly slow weekends. This is the case even though it’s not fully completed and the residential part has yet to start.
So, we assume Quill City Mall to be safe for now but would developers be pushing for ever more malls? Some of you might be smiling cynically when you read this piece of news. We have always been informed that there are way too many new malls today in the Klang Valley. Yet, OSK Property Holdings Bhd announced that they are targeting to another five shopping malls within the next five years. Okay, fortunately, not all the five is in the Klang Valley. This does not include the one they have just opened; Atria Shopping Gallery in SS22, Damansara Jaya.
The next one would be in Cheras and the new mall is part of the integrated development there. By 2020, all the additional five would have been completed. After Cheras would be the largest mall in Kedah in Sungai Petani. It will have one million sq ft of net lettable area. (NLA). Fourth one would be in Section 13, Petaling Jaya (200,000 sq ft NLA) and the fifth one is in Melbourne, South Bank area, near the casino. The final one would be in Cyberjaya (350,000 NLA) which is also part of OSK’s mixed-integrated project.
Are there too many malls? Well, from how OSK Property is planning for a few more before 2020, it does seem that as long as the management is done right, these malls can move up to be a popular neighbourhood mall. There’s really no need to strive to replace the bigger ones such as Mid Valley or even One Utama. I agree. That’s why I look forward to even more of these neighbourhood malls and do be reminded that the population within Greater KL alone would rise another 65% by 2020. Thus, the new mall numbers may have to also match this growth or else, sooner or later, no one would dare to go Mid Valley or One Utama or Sunway Pyramid. Just finding parking would have taken us hours….
written on 30 May 2015
next suggested article: Kelana Jaya, upcoming RM1.8 Billion GDV by Sunway.