Good times are back for malls

Mall developers in India seem to have regained some confidence which was shaken by the economic slump that took its toll on the country’s retail sector last year. Some developers are reviving projects as rentals have started looking up with shoppers returning.

The past three months has witnessed the opening of 15 new malls in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune, and at least 48 more will be opened next year. Till the end of 2008, these seven cities had 163 malls with 338.6 million sq. ft of space.

Around 80-85 per cent of some 640 malls in various stages of development were put on hold after the global meltdown hit the Indian economy in 2008. Retail and real estate were the worst hit, and mall rentals dropped drastically, forcing the developers to go slow on projects.

According to an estimate by property consultancy firm Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, 23 new malls have been opened in 2009 and out of this, 15 have started since October.

These include the upscale Palladium in Mumbai and K Raheja group’s Inorbit Mall in Hyderabad. In Bangalore, Ramkumar Mills, a 600,000 sq. ft mall, went operational with Star Bazaar. In Kolkata, Lake Mall began operations earlier in this quarter with Fun Cinema and Big Bazaar.