Monday, September 20, 2004
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SPENCER PLAZA, Chennai
“The mall has it all.”
Over the years, Chennai’s Spencer Plaza has become much more than the most popular retail destination of the city—it has metamorphosed into a major landmark! When an enclosed commercial complex begins to be associated with a metropole’s identity, much may be said about the abstractness and inwardness of modern urban spaces. Viewed from such critically social quarters, the phenomenon speaks volumes for the growing importance of leisure and non-labour activities together with increasing economic competition.
And economic competition is exactly what has kept Spencer Plaza a step ahead of its competitors. In fact, as matters stand at present, it has no competitors! Its sheer size, surfeit of branded franchisees, central location and a century old name in Chennai’s commercial circles have all successfully conspired to keep competitors at bay.
Mangal Tirth Estate Ltd., the sole promoter of the property, conceived of this huge retail-cum-office destination way back in the ‘80s with the Spencer Co. Ltd., after the old Spencer commercial complex was burnt down in an accidental fire in 1984. Incidentally, the Spencer Group currently operates as RPG with specialised outlets—such as Food World, Health & Glow and Music World—that have dedicated spaces within the Plaza. Launched as the city’s first retail shopping centre as early as 1990, Spencer Plaza started out modestly enough with a few jewellery and garment stores since the concept of the ‘mall’ scene had still to catch up with the Indian market. But the spot gradually gathered momentum in the mid-90’s, with franchisees of major brand names like Proline, Karnataka Handlooms, Titan, Louis Phillips, Adidas, Levis and Color Plus joining as anchor tenants. And ever since, Spencer Plaza has never had to look anywhere but ahead.
Apart from the joint venture with Spencer Co. Ltd., majority of the tenant mix in the Plaza include individuals and small investing companies, who have bought space and given it out on rent to retailers at an investment return of around 11 per cent. The few inducers include brand names who have bought space for their own use, such as Color Plus, Levis, Florsheim, Westside and Lee.
With an influx of retailers and investors, the Mall, which started out with a super built up area of 300,000 square feet with only 1,25,000 square feet of retail space, now has a total area of 1,850,000 square feet with 550,000 square feet of dedicated retail space! But owing to its premature and unconventional beginnings, Spencer Plaza operates differently from the country’s newer and upcoming malls, where retail spaces may only be leased out—here one can still purchase retail space.
This hugely popular mall experiences an estimated footfall of nearly 32,000 per day on weekdays, which shoots up to 40,000 - 42,000 per day during weekends and festive seasons. Conversion factor for the complex is approximately 12 - 15 per cent, with anchor tenant Landmark single-handedly accounting for a weekday footfall of roughly 5,000 per day and 7,000 per day during weekends and a conversion rate of 30 per cent during weekends. Another successful tenant, the Pantaloon showroom, records a weekday footfall of about 600 – 700 per day and a conversion rate of 35 per cent, which rises to 1,000 – 1,200 per day during weekends with a conversion rate of upto 50 per cent during weekends!
The USP of the Plaza lies in providing better spaces with maximum visibility to its anchor stores, coupled with services such as air-conditioned interiors, multi-level car parking and car lift facilities, 24-hour security services, information counters at strategic positions and much more. Located in the heart of Chennai’s business quarter, in close proximity to major banks, hotels and tourist offices, the Mall attracts the best of customers actually interested in converting a casual visit into a purchase visit.
Spencer Plaza has succeeded in revolutionising the concept of retailing in Chennai, and in the process, has become a landmark in itself. The same city that saw the rise of such retail giants like Foodworld, Nilgiris and Saravana Bhavan, needed a Spencer Plaza to bring in the first organised mega format for retailing. It has succeeded in setting an example as a premium shopping complex in Chennai, where no competition with any organised retailing space existed.
It is this very monopoly of Chennai’s retail market that Spencer Plaza has enjoyed over the years, which may now be challenged by new and upcoming malls.
R-MALL, Mumbai
“A destination of choice for the common man.”
Can a popular shopping centre ever pack enough punch to put a whole neighbourhood under the spotlight? The owners of R-mall claim to have done just that by strategically putting Mulund and the city’s eastern suburbs at the forefront of the retailing scene in amchi Mumbai.
Deliberately positioned as a large format retail shop that caters to both the ‘classes’ as well as the ‘masses’, the ISO accredited Runwal Group’s R-Mall, nevertheless, mainly targets affluent sections of the growing suburban areas of Mulund, Bhandup, Powai, Ghatkopar, Chembur and Navi Mumbai. This, approximately, 30 lakh-strong customer base has been the best thing going for the Mulund Mall. Its success as a retail destination lies in its being the first to bring the convenience and experience of a shopping mall to the growing chunk of middle-class suburban Mumbaikers with disposable incomes.
Owned by the Rs. 500 crore Runwal Group, headed by Founder Chairman Subhash Runwal, the venture has also cashed in on the Group’s established goodwill in the market as the ‘preferred developer’ of real estate in the State of Maharashtra. The Group set out to launch the Mall as a wholesome family destination for a district that seriously lacked in world class shopping and entertainment options. A fully functional, four-storied mall with 100 percent occupancy in a record 18 months, was a major milestone for the Group.
And their vision has more than paid off, if the fact that it attracts more than 150,000 footfalls per week is to be taken into account. Estimated to generate a turnover of more than 100 crores for the fiscal year 2003-04, the mall has proved to be profitable in more ways than one.
This sprawling 2,50,000 square feet mall stands out in Mulund’s landscape because of its unconventional 700 feet façade. The mall interior has been designed in such a way as to make every shop front visible from the central atrium, ensuring equal customer weightage for all tenants. Big Bazaar, Lifestyle and Westside are the major anchor stores—together with the four-screen in-house multiplex, these stores draw in the maximum portion of the mall’s footfalls. Among the more popular brands present at R-Mall are Pizza Hut, Café Coffee Day, Subway, Cream Centre, Planet M., Tanishq, Raymonds and Provogue Studio. The place also houses an entertainment arena for children and adults alike, with a multi-cuisine food court occupying the top floor.
But what really takes the cake in innovative concept design is the seven-level free car parking area spread over more than 1,80,000 square feet. It has a capacity for accommodating 800 vehicles and is connected to each mall floor with two full sized parking elevators. Someone sure has been concentrating on customer convenience!
The biggest challenges faced by the Runwal Group in setting up the R-Mall in Mulund, Mumbai, lay in convincing big retail brands into changing their South Mumbai mindsets in favour of the potential suburbs. At the same time, the group had to simultaneously work on the shopping, entertainment and eating out habits of Mumbai’s suburban customer base.
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