16 minute read
WELCOME REMARKS
DISCOVERING NEW RETAIL CONCEPT
Featuring: Aswaq Management & Services Team
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Cooperation Model A new Trend for UAE Retail
“Landlord-Tenant Relationship pattern shall grow beyond a simple lease agreement toward e ective partnerships built on investments and profits sharing.”
P11 Dilmunia Island Canal Launches Dancing Fountains P12 The Retail Format of the Future P16 Times Square Center Announces Picnic Square
ON THE COVER
Guillaume Darlix & AMS Corporate Team
Thank you to
YOUNUS AL MULLA
MECS+R Chairman Senior Vice President - Retail International Development, Shopping Malls Procurement & Government Affairs Majid Al Futtaim Retail
ENG. WAIL M. BALKHAIR
MECS+R Board President Saudi Arabia
MECS+R BOARD OF DIRECTORS
KAMEL SHABAN
CEO, SOLO MECS+R Board Vice President
JUBY JOSE
Head of Marketing & Specialty Leasing DALMA MALL MECS+R Board Treasurer
ALESSANDRO GAFFURI
CEO & Founder CELS Group MECS+R Board Member
DUAIJ AL RUMAIHI
Mall Director, Bahrain Shopping Malls City Centre Bahrain MECS+R Board Member
GOGI GEORGE
GM - Development & Leasing Lulu Group International - Oman MECS+R Board Member
MOHAMMED AL QAED
Manager, Property Management SEEF Properties MECS+R Board Member
SAMAR AKKOU
Leasing Manager Nakheel Malls MECS+R Board Member
WELCOME
-Simon Sinek, Author, Trainer, Public Speaker Our goal at the MECS+R is to be better everyday. Listening to our members, creating new platforms to support our members, and to succeed beyond what our members thought possible enable us to be better everyday. With every step we take to support our members, launching our new programs such as the Global Associate Program (GAP), we become better everyday. Our new WeServeU initiative is another example of being better today. In order to assist others to be better today, we work hard to create opportunities where our members can rely on the expertise and knowledge we have learned over the past years to share with you. Newly created digital platforms now help you to re-establish your professional networks and enable you to build on your knowledge base. The impressive digital reach of the Retail People Magazine, our What’s-Up Retail Monthly Newsletter, and our recently launched E-Learning Platform GVS Global School for all Retail Professionals speak clearly of the commitment we have to make your business thrive. The Voice on Demand Podcasts, Video on Demand YouTube Channel, and our recently launched VLOG all ensure you have every opportunity to build and expand your business. To excel in the retail business, all you have to do is participate, be active in the industry, and be present at our many events digitally and physically held throughout the year. This issue of the Retail People Magazine themed “Discovering New Retail Concept” is full of great insights. Guillaume Darlix from Aswaq speaks of a new Cooperation Model between retailers and shopping centre owners. Avijit Yadav outlines the Retail Format of the Future, soon to launch in Kuwait. Nancy Ozbek writes about the success of her new Food Court format in Times Square. Rahmania Mall in Sharjah is another newly launched centre. Rebecca Arnold in Mall of Dilmunia writes about the successful launch of the new Dancing Fountains entertainment as a first in Bahrain. Susil Dungarwal, Mehmet Soltay, Pinkesh Shroff, Manish Dhamani, Vikram Malkani, Mohit Ahuja, Ghadi Ali, Dante Kennedy, Bob Poline and Rupkatha Bhowmick have all contributed wonderful informative articles in this issue of the Retail People Magazine. Alessandro Gaffuri from CELS Group is our Featured Member for this quarter. Our team at the MECS+R again would like to thank our authors, our advertisers, and you, our readers, for your support. Your success and our success have helped us to understand that creating an organization with a clear vision is the lasting legacy we seek. We invite you to become more involved and we welcome your articles, views, and insights in our Retail People Magazine. Reach out to Mariz Matocdo at customercare@mecsc.org.
Thank you to our members, advertisers, authors and supporters who make each Retail People Magazine issue better and more meaningful with every quarter we publish.
DAVID MACADAM
Chief Executive Officer MECS+R Eng. Wail M. Balkhair
Board President MECS+R
COOPERATION
A NEW TREND FOR UAE RETAIL
Even if many of us wish we could travel abroad more easily, the reality is that living in the UAE, at least, for the last 1 ½ year, is a blessing. Indeed, most of the world wants to come and enjoy the lifestyle permitted by the success of the country’s great management of this crisis.
The immediate outcome for the residents is the freedom of movement and, focusing on our industry, access to shopping malls, leisure and F&B destinations. It translated in a bounce-back of the footfall and sales, not immediately to the previous pandemic levels, but sufficient to sustain and keep growing.
This trend needs to be corroborated in a couple of months and throughout the summer to be fully established. However, it is an encouraging new beginning quite different from most of the situation witnessed worldwide where mandatory closures are still the norm with disastrous consequences, not limited to the retail industry.
In this surviving mode, retailers and landlords have learned the importance of dialogue. Communicating, sometimes forcefully, is the only way to face challenges and to sustain together. Guillaume Darlix - CCO Aswaq Management and Services
During the past decade, the market has evolved from the landlorddominated model into much more stabilized, and perhaps balancing in the favor of the tenants. Tenant relationship, acquired prior to the crisis and carried through this unprecedented period, is the key ingredient to stay afloat for any kind of malls, whether it is old or new, moderate-sized or a giant, the flexibility in negotiation and maintaining the dialogue are the true performance indicator in the current context.
Simply, the market is getting more balanced thus healthier. But transition periods are not fluid and not easy to manage, especially when it is accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. During such a time of crisis, we were lucky to have the sun shining almost every day and the pleasant environment that the UAE offers helping us to stand up to the challenges and be one step ahead focusing on the future.
Hopefully, lessons learned during the pandemic will guide us toward a healthier market with a better comprehension of the consumer needs, optimized merchandizing & retailers mix, attuned positioning, audience segmentation, and others, addressing real needs of a given catchment rather than copying, replicating existing success stories.
An encouraging element is that both sides of the table of stakeholders are getting more and more in line with this way of thinking and understand the priority of limiting or selecting the physical presence of a certain type of offering or brand, demonstrating a more mindful and sustainable attitude.
Consumption per capita may surely come back to previous levels, however, the pandemic has also given the lion’s share to the digital world and its rapidly ramping up online sales. This of course complicates the position of physical retail and demands lessors and lessees to fully behave as partners, be partners!
This means agreeing upon a mutual strategy that makes each store and every shopping precinct unique and appealing, at least sufficiently motivating for a customer to point to that direction rather than to another.
Both parties have their role to play in building future success. Brands can and sometimes should have several showrooms. However, with a different look & feel or collection selected in line with the specific catchment or location, tailored for the targeted audience; specific leisure activities should be differentiated from one mall to another rather than duplicated when it is successful.
With concerted action between malls and retailers, the transition will be much more fluid, and it requires a reasonable mapping of physical presence according to the available, non-extensive, catchment area. It is worth mentioning that such a revised business model will be perceived as more authentic, sustainable, and therefore will emanate the image of success.
The experience of Aswaq Management and Services (AMS) in the local market, as well as the willingness to remain competent and competitive in an innovative retail industry environment, is what motivates our team to challenge themselves, to find new opportunities, and to always show openness and flexibility in a rather challenging context.
Back in the 1960s in France, when the market is expanding across Europe in Italy, Spain and Belgium, the Shopping Center Company (SCC) has signed a joint venture in 1999 in the UAE with HH Sheikh Suroor Bin Mohammed Al Nahyan and HE Nasser Al Nowais to develop the Abu Dhabi Mall (ADM). That is how Aswaq Management and Services (AMS) was born and extended its services throughout the Middle East and the Levant, in countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran as well as more recently to Switzerland.
At present, AMS still manages ADM including the offices and residential components (Abu Dhabi Trade Center) as well as Etihad Towers, Souq AlJami’ (SAJ at Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque), Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Park (SFP), Al Ruwais / ADNOC City and Masdar City Plaza.
Today, AMS oversees a portfolio of quite diverse retail properties, and we aim at emphasizing their distinct identities in order to increase their relevancy to an increasingly demanding and intransigent customer base.
ADNOC Ruwais City
The experience of Aswaq Management and Services (AMS) in the local market, as well as the willingness to remain competent and competitive in an innovative retail industry environment, is what motivates our team to challenge themselves, to find new opportunities, and to always show openness and flexibility in a rather challenging context.”
Indeed, the objective is certainly not to compete against another shopping centre, but to identify the needs of the catchment not yet catered to and build a revived personality around it.
Abu Dhabi Mall (ADM) is meant to serve the community mainly living on the main island, not as a destination, but more a daily convenient and accessible shopping mall.
Souq Al Jami’ (SAJ) is mainly touristic-based as it is supporting Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque visitors and also coupled with the community-centric role for the population residing in the adjacent neighborhood and of course the worshippers.
is located on the former Women’s park in Khalidiya and offers the best of an outdoor property, with plenty of facilities and activities in a nutshell of 43,000sqm land. Retail-wise, the objective was to connect with the Abu Dhabi community partnering with local and young business entrepreneurs willing to set up concept-stores rather than expanding already high-footprint brands. Also, to become a culinary destination with its plethoric food offering.
ADNOC Ruwais City is by definition a destination on its own comprising several retail precincts such as the main shopping mall, several community malls & marketplaces, traditional souk, fish & vegetable market, a beach club, etc.
Masdar City Plaza is becoming a casual destination for convenient shopping, boutique gym, pampering services, and food experience serving the captive catchment area of Masdar City itself and to those residing and working/studying. Also, a greater catchment area encompassing the nearby community of Al Raha and Khalifa City A.
Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Park (SFP)
As always, crises may represent challenges but all the more the opportunities to change, to evolve, to grow and between the need to overcome the impact of the pandemic and the buying online market share, we indeed have more reasons than enough why we should!
There is a risk that old habits come back as in what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh. But on a positive note, I believe that we have the opportunity to make the new dominant norm mutually beneficial by fostering a new Landlord-Tenant Relationship pattern growing beyond a simple lease agreement based on a percentage of sales but effective partnerships built on investments and profits sharing.
AMS Commercial Team
Retail Leasing Opportunities:
• Ruwais Mall (18,000 sq m GLA) • Community Malls and Marketplaces • Traditional Souq • Fish & Vegetable Market • Stand-alone units and showrooms
Ruwais City was purpose-built by ADNOC to house the teams at the oil production plant in the 1980s, and is pivotal to the success of the United Arab Emirates. As the oil industry grew, so did the city, and today it boasts retail and residential leasing opportunities to match any desirable lifestyle. With a growing population of over 25,000 people and a regional catchment of over 90,000, Ruwais is set to be the regional hub. Today Ruwais is a thriving city full of opportunities. Tomorrow it will be double in size and population and become a center of strategic investment.
Dilmunia Island Canal Launches Dancing Fountains for the first time in the Kingdom of Bahrain
Located in the heart of Dilmunia Island, Mall of Dilmunia officially launched the much-anticipated Canal and dancing fountains on 2nd March 2021, bringing the exciting features of the one-stop destination for shopping and entertainment to life.
The Dilmunia Canal is the Kingdom’s largest man-made body of water, stretching 1.7km from the Marina located in the north of the development, all the way to the Dilmunia Garden situated in the south of the island. A unique feature for the project and the entire Kingdom, the Canal was filled on December 2020 with water pumped directly from the surrounding sea and has been designed to flow in two separate directions, returning to the sea to create a sustainable circulation.
REBECCA ARNOLD GENERAL MANAGER & DEPUTY CEO MALL OF DILMUNIA KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN
A key element of the Canal is the interactive, multicolored dancing fountains strategically placed around the Mall of Dilmunia. The multimedia fountains measure 20 meters in height and are complemented by 15-meter-high air nozzles that create spectacular choreographed multi-dimensional spray patterns reaching up to 10 meters in height, and dancing in harmony with pre-set musically synchronized shows and attractions.
Dilmunia Canal’s dancing fountains will be one of the island’s key focal points, adding to the distinctive character of Dilmunia Mall, which also boasts canal-facing terraced F&B outlets with indoor and outdoor seating, retail offerings and unique entertainment for the entire family.
Ms. Rebecca Arnold, General Manager & Deputy CEO for Mall of Dilmunia and MECS+R Regional Representative for Bahrain stated “residents and visitors will enjoy a vibrant dining atmosphere with waterfront views surrounded by promenades; geysers, choreographed dancing fountains, water walls, water cascades, and event plazas. This iconic landmark is expected to become one of the Kingdom’s leading event venues, attracting visitors from across Bahrain and the surrounding GCC countries.”
THE RETAIL FORMAT OF THE FUTURE -
As the experience economy soars with retail concepts evolving to deliver affordable shopping, curated F&B offerings, and tech-enhanced entertainment, we are met with a shopper who wants it all. Malls are refining themselves to meet these expectations through an upgraded shopping experience while perhaps falling short on their value offering which is gaining importance by the day.
The Hybrid Outlet Concept:
The Al Khiran Hybrid Outlet Mall in Kuwait will meet these heightened shopper expectations by offering a combination of highvalue and dynamic experiences through a mix of premium outlet shopping, curated dining, immersive entertainment, large format events & exhibitions and recreational leisure experiences.
Destination Creation – Endless Experiences:
A full day of experience is what Al Khiran Hybrid Outlet Mall will offer its customers. Their day will be made as they hunt for the best bargains, grab a quick bite at one of the eateries or dine in excellence only to come back to more shopping! Parents can drop kids off at one of the supervised play zones, catch a movie or enjoy recreational activities like strolling along Kuwait’s largest marina within a beautifully landscaped park and boardwalk including the Water Gardens, a unique outdoor feature with captivating water fountains and an amphitheater holding a year-long program of events.
“The world, shoppers, and their expectations are changing rapidly and erratically. To find meaning in this uncertainty that will last and be embraced is vital for the success of our retailers as well as for us. Al Khiran Hybrid Outlet Mall finds its meaning at the intersection of experience and value, which resonates with current and future shoppers.
Avijit Yadav - Chief Executive Officer Tamdeen Mall Management
Catchment Area:
Al Khiran Hybrid Outlet Mall is strategically located in the South of Kuwait, which is undergoing significant development with 4 major cities nearing completion creating a major population base. Having a strong outlet component, it will serve most of Kuwait, the Eastern Saudi provinces, and a robust Saudi tourist market; 94% of which enters Kuwait through the Khafji border, 30 km from the mall. The total population base in the catchment area is estimated to be 4 million, which is complemented by an additional tourist inflow of 2.5 million Saudi tourists arriving by road.
Al Khiran Hybrid Outlet Mall Facts:
Project Area : 350,000 m2
GLA : 70,000 m2
Retail Stores : 300 Landscaped Park & Boardwalk : 1.25 km Marina Berths : 900 Parking Spaces : 3,000
Al Khiran Hybrid Outlet Mall will offer experiences for the whole day and the whole family serving as the main commercial center of the 6.4 million m2 Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City.
Al Khiran Hybrid Outlet Mall is being developed by Tamdeen Group, one of the main real-estate developers in the Middle East, which has consistently delivered exceptional real-estate including the award-winning 360 Kuwait and Al Kout with a single-minded purpose; To Build Great Places.
