Merlin Group has taken over an unfinished mall on Diamond Harbour Road in the Joka-Thakurpukur area to develop the city’s first mall for the southwestern suburbs.
The city-based real estate developer plans to name the mall Acropolis South, extending the Acropolis brand, under which it operates a popular mall on Rashbehari Connector in south Kolkata’s Kasba.
It would take about 18 months for the property to be operational, adding close to 3.5 lakh square feet of prime retail space in the city where demand for top-grade malls is outpacing supply for a myriad of reasons, most notably the pandemic that hobbled the construction industry for two years.
Market sources pegged the deal size to be around Rs 100 crore. The unfinished property meant for a mall previously belonged to Paharpur Group, which owns the well-known city-based engineering company Paharpur Cooling Towers.
Paharpur has relinquished control of the property which is located adjacent to Genexx Valley Township which it had fully developed and sold out. Merlin plans to invest another Rs 200 crore in expanding and refurbishing the mall.
“We have done a business arrangement with Paharpur Group, which had originally planned the project and partially developed it. Merlin Group will complete the balance work, manage and maintain the facility,” Saket Mohta, managing director of Merlin told The Telegraph.
Apart from adding floors and expanding the leasable area, the most notable change will be in the character of the property. Merlin plans to convert it into a fully air-conditioned mall, moving away from the openair atrium kind of structure originally envisioned.
Merlin has gained considerable expertise in managing malls after developing Acropolis in Kasba. Moreover, it is also a partner in South City Mall, one of the most successful malls in eastern India.
“Running a mall requires a lot of expertise and we have gained that knowledge and also developed good relationships with retailers and F&B operators over the years,” Sushil Mohta, chairman of Merlin Group, added.
The mall is likely to cater to a vast catchment area that lies north of the mall up to Taratala and south of the property going all the way to Amtala, real estate experts believe. The positioning of brands in the mall will be mid to upper segment, given the profile of the Behala locality.
The closest mall to Acropolis South will be an upmarket upcoming property in Alipore by The Phoenix Mills Ltd, which is 8 kilometres away.
A study by consultancy Knight Frank in September suggested Kolkata has 5.6 million square feet of operational mall stock even as the top-grade malls account for only 45 per cent of the space.
The demand for superior-grade shopping malls is high in India as both international retailers and leading national brands have a strong appetite for prime retail spaces that have high footfalls. Consumers also tend to prefer superior malls that offer a comprehensive tenant mix and good mall management and infrastructure, consultancy JLL noted.
As a result, vacancy in such malls is lower than in the rest.
A study by JLL suggested that there is only a 3 per cent vacancy in top-grade malls in Kolkata as of September 2022.