Monday, Apr 03, 2017
DUBAI
It’s the season for new mall openings in the Middle East. The doors open this week for the $1.8 billion (Dh6.61 billion) Doha Festival City, with the Al-Futtaim Group taking its mall branding to new territories. It is being billed as the largest shopping and leisure destination in Qatar.
There was the Majid Al Futtaim Group doing so with the massive — at 165,000 square metres — mall of Egypt last month. And Saudi Arabia’s Arabian Centres keeps topping up its portfolio of shopping destinations across the length and breadth of the kingdom.
And then there is the ABC Verdun Mall, a swanky upmarket destination that is to open in Beirut in July. A five-storey structure, the mall will encompass 50,000 square metres of gross leasable area, including 2,300 square metres for entertainment and 3,700 square metres for the cinema. For the Lebanese, never one to miss out on an opportunity to get in a spot of fun and pleasure, the Verdun’s opening will be a high point of their summer calendar.
Clearly, politics and the troubles across the border have not proved much of a distraction for the developer as well, which currently operates two other malls. “In-depth knowledge about the area is the basis for every successful decision when it comes to any shopping centre development,” said Frank-Matthias Kuntermann, who took as Deputy CEO of ABC Group in November last.
“Verdun is a new catchment area for us. Our choice of the location was based on feasibility studies to define the market capacity and provide crucial information on demographics and purchasing power. On top of the immediate catchment area, it will also offer easy access to the southern part of the country, whose inhabitants had to cross congested Beirut to access an ABC flagship.”
Designed by Seattle-based Callison, the ABC Verdun — with a development cost of $300 million — is located in the heart of southwest Beirut. As of now, 85 per cent of the mall has been leased, to a mix of local and international brands and restaurants.
“Considered the first “retailtainment” destination in Lebanon, ABC Verdun is positioned higher than the existing market,” said Kuntermann, who is in Dubai for the World Retail Congress. “Many local — and international players — are now focusing their new launches inside our malls. ABC Verdun will be a social and economic anchor within Verdun.
“An open-air light-flooded mall, ABC Verdun will have an ambience similar to the one in Achrafieh. It has a strong architectural signature with Mediterranean vibes. The mall is envisioned to attract the same traffic levels … if not more, given its size and that of the catchment area.”
According to market sources, Lebanon’s economy — and several of its key pillars like tourism, real estate development and retail — has shown a large measure of resilience to the situation in the region, and, in particular, the Syria crisis. Real estate activity has been holding up, or as well as can be under the circumstances given that Gulf investors have not been as visible after the oil price crisis.
But retail sector sentiments, market sources say, continue to be upbeat and that is exactly what ABC Verdun will tap into once the opening is done with.
By Manoj Nair Associate Editor
Gulf News 2017. All rights reserved.
