Tuesday, Apr 17, 2012

Gulf News

Dubai One of Dubai’s original retail hubs, Meena Bazaar, is getting a much-needed facelift. This is taking place shop by shop and street by street. And it is being done without too much attention being drawn to the process.

Some of the established retailers have already gone for extensive overhauls of the way their outlets look and be more in sync with the times.

Given the way that the retail and residential components in Meena Bazaar are packed in, there is only so much that shop-owners can do with their new look and feel. Expansive changes are ruled out.

Assured clientele

While a captive buyer base right next door has always been a source of strength for Meena Bazaar’s retailers, in the latter part of the last decade many of them were not able to pull in shoppers from outside the immediate neighbourhood.

“The retail environment on that side of Dubai was getting saturated; shoppers from further away had to surmount traffic to get there and parking within and outside of Meena Bazaar was a problem,” said Ashok Sawlani, partner at Royal Fashion. “Keep in mind that shoppers had 20 other alternatives within Bur Dubai itself to get what they wanted without encountering any of the hassles in Meena Bazaar.”

This was felt most intensely in 2009 and early 2010, a period when the whole retail sector itself was going through its toughest tests ever. That could well have provided Meena Bazaar’s retailers the incentive to change. Already, some areas within it have seen the benefits coming through with the makeover.

Initially, it was the leading jewellery brands that went through the process of change, and in their wake came the fashion retailers. The commissioning of the Metro and the nearby terminals also helped Meena Bazaar’s cause. Creation of privately-owned parking areas also helped.

Landlords, or at least the majority of them, played their part in stoking the recovery by not increasing the rentals on the shops during 2009 and 2010.

Currently, shop rentals at prime locations are between Dh350 to Dh550 a square foot, and these would not pale in comparison to what they are at some of the mid-tier malls in town. A decade ago, these shops would have paid rents of Dh50 to Dh100 a square foot.

Rental costs

There is also the ‘key money’ that needs to be paid if a shop changes hands, and for a single-shutter shop on the arterial Cosmos Lane with the Bazaar, it could be a substantial Dh300,000 to Dh600,000 as a one-off 
payment. But it has not been all good tidings of late. A leading retail group has just made the shift to new corporate offices on Shaikh Zayed Road after decades at its Meena Bazaar location. Others too could be taking the same road. Sawlani believes that the Bazaar and its retailers will need to do a lot more if some of the pre-eminence of old is to be brought back. “Above all, it has to be accessible,” he added.

But others are willing to give the locality time. “Until recently Meena Bazaar seemed to be caught in a 1980s time warp. It was high time that it needed to be brought into the 2010s and, thankfully, it’s happening now,” said a retailer who had gone through an extensive renovation of his outlet.

It is hoped that such facelifts and the ones to come will revive Meena Bazaar as a whole, body and soul. Dubai’s retail map will be better off for it.

By Manoj Nair?Associate Editor

Gulf News 2012. All rights reserved.