Retailers are bullish on Dubai’s latest mega shopping mall, Festival Plaza, and expect the Al Futtaim-owned destination will boost footfalls by several folds, thanks to Swedish home-furnishing giant IKEA who has set up its biggest store in the same mall.

Besides its 30,000 sq ft flagship store IKEA, the mall, which was opened today, features popular shops such as ACE, Marks & Spencer and Lulu Hypermarket, where 85 percent of the retail space is dedicated for fresh food and groceries.

The 700,000 sq ft shopping centre is located in the South Dubai area, just past Ibn Battuta Mall and is only a ten-minute walk from the Energy Station of the Dubai Metro.

Barely an hour after opening, serpentine queues were beginning to form inside the mall, as eager visitors wanted to check into IKEA.

“People got excited about the promotion that some vouchers would be given away to some of the first lucky visitors,” Mohammad Al Jaber, branch manager of Al Jaber Optical said, referring to IKEA’s promotion to reward some of the first 1,000 visitors with 1,000 dirhams worth of vouchers.

Retailers such as Al Jaber are confident that, with IKEA being the flagship outlet, the new mall will bring life to the residential areas around it and attract additional traffic from the neighbouring communities, including Abu Dhabi.

“The presence of IKEA is a huge factor to us, and it will bring good business to this community, because it is one of the biggest in the Middle East. People from Abu Dhabi, Wasl Gate, Meadows, Barsha and other areas will definitely come here,” Al Jaber told Zawya.com.

HUGE CROWDS WELCOME DUBAI’S NEWEST MALL

So far, the mall hosts more than 30 restaurants and food and beverage outlets and several retail outlets. There will be more than 120 stores that will be operational once everything is in full swing.

Nabil Mahmoud, operations manager of Borders, agreed that the mall’s biggest draw will indeed be the IKEA store, citing that in the first few months of their operations, they will most likely see about a million visitors a month or 100,000 to 200,000 people daily as a result.

“Compared to our other outlets in the UAE, this one in Festival Plaza will significantly perform better because of the location of the mall, as well as the fact that IKEA is also based here,” Mahmoud told Zawya.com. Borders operates 16 branches across the UAE and a total of 25 across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

“Within the first year, I think our shop in Festival Plaza might become in the top 10 in terms of performance compared to our other outlets. [The reason is that] we’re now closer to the Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai Marina and Jebel Ali crowd. And people who want to buy furniture will now no longer need to drive all the way to Festival City or Yas Mall in Abu Dhabi,” added Saleh Al Shawa, general manager of Al Jaber Optical.

The mall is expected to serve as the lifestyle destination for the upcoming Wasl Gate community and also appeal to nearby areas including Dubai Marina, Jebel Ali, Al Furjan, Dubai Marina and commuters from neighbouring Abu Dhabi. 

Timothy Earnest, Group Director of Al Futtaim Malls, said during the opening ceremony that “a number of other great retailers” are also set to open their doors in the mall soon, hinting that they’re also getting ready to unveil an exciting development in about a month.

“There’s more to come and we have an exciting announcement in about 30 days for our last anchor location which will even solidify even further the goals and objectives of this property,” Earnest added.

(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Seban Scaria)

( Cleofe.Maceda@refinitiv.com )

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© ZAWYA 2019