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Dubai-headquartered mall developer Majid Al Futtaim is on track to open three super malls by 2021, a company official said.
Ahmed Galal Ismail, chief executive officer of Majid Al Futtaim – Properties told Thomson Reuters Projects that the company has a healthy pipeline of future developments with three super-regional malls slated to open in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Oman between now and 2021.
He said the company will open City Centre Almaza, its fourth shopping centre in Egypt, in September 2019, and is on track to open City Centre Al Zahia in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2020.
“The year afterwards [2021], we will open Mall of Oman, which would be the largest shopping, entertainment destination in the Sultanate of Oman,” he said on the sidelines of the inauguration of My City Centre Masdar in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
The $714 million Mall of Oman will feature 137,000 square metres (sq m) of retail space, while the $708 million City Centre Al Zahia and the $233 million City Centre Almaza will offer 136,200 sq m and 103,455 sq m of retail spaces respectively, according to previous company statements.
In January, Majid Al Futtaim had opened $117 million City Centre Suhar, its fourth shopping centre in Oman.
Ismail said My City Centre Masdar in Masdar City is the company’s first shopping mall in Abu Dhabi, and its fifth My City Centre neighbourhood retail concept.
The 300 million UAE dirhams mall ($81.7 million) mall with 18,500 sq m of gross leasable area and the 100thCarrefour store in the UAE is the company’s 25th shopping mall in the region, according to a company press statement.
Ismail said 80 percent of the retail space at My City Centre Masdar has been leased.
“We expect to attract a million visitors in the first nine months of our operations and in the first full year of operations next year, we're hoping to attract two million visitors,” he said, adding that the mall’s immediate catchment area has a population of 100,000 people.
The most sustainable mall in Abu Dhabi
Ismail said that the new mall is “the most sustainable shopping mall in Abu Dhabi”, in line with Masdar City’s status as a low-carbon development.
The mall’s sustainability features helped it achieve a three-pearl rating under Abu Dhabi’s Estidama sustainability building framework, he noted.
He continued: “We employed the most sustainable eco-friendly materials and methods. During construction, 70 to 80 percent of the construction waste was diverted away from landfill and recycled. The mall has been designed in such a way that it integrates with the public transport network, and encourages use of electrical vehicles and ride-sharing.”
The press statement announcing the mall’s opening said that six percent of mall’s 600 car parking bays has been set aside for electric, hybrid or car-share vehicles with half of them equipped with charging points. The statement said the mall is adjacent to the site of the proposed Masdar City Metro Station and proposed bus and light rail transit stops.
Ismail pointed out that My City Centre Masdar generates one-fifth of its electricity requirements from solar power.
“We have a commitment in Majid Al Futtaim that any new shopping centre we open should generate seven and-a-half percent of its energy requirements from solar but with My City Centre Masdar, we were able to push that to 20 percent,” he said.
Other sustainability features include the use of district cooling for air-conditioning, energy-efficient LED lighting fixtures and using recycled water for irrigation.
For 2018, Majid Al Futtaim Properties registered one percent revenue growth to end the year at 4.6 billion dirhams ($1.3 billion), according to the company’s year-end results statement. The statement said EBITDA [Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation] increased by 2 percent to 3 billion dirhams ($816.7 million), contributing almost 65 percent of overall group EBITDA. Its total shopping mall occupancy stood at 95 percent while the number of mall customers increased 4 percent year-on-year to 192 million.
(Reporting by Anoop Menon; Editing by Michael Fahy)
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