With over 50 malls, 35 hotels and 10 townships on the cards, Entertainment World Developers Private Limited (EWDPL) is aiming to be the largest developer of shopping malls and urban city centres in the country.
At present, through 21 projects spread across 13 cities in 8 states, EWDPL has over 41 million square feet of space under development. The cities include Chandigarh, Udaipur, Indore, Ujjain, Vadodara, Nagpur, Amravati, Nanded, Raipur, Bhillai, Jabalpur and Bengaluru.
The company is developing malls under three formats – Treasure Market City, the ‘destination mall’ concept; Treasure Island, the ‘shopping mall’ concept; and Treasure Bazaar, the ‘convenience’ mall. The group is also coming up with residential townships called Treasure Town.
Anand Sundaram, COO, Operations, at Market City Management Pvt. Ltd (the resource pool of Phoenix Mills Ltd, EWDPL and Big Apple), confirmed the developments in an email to Indiaretailing.
Sundaram explained that the company’s effort is to size malls in accordance to the catchment areas. “As we see it, out of the planned 50 malls, a majority will be under Treasure Island format, which will be about 500,000 square feet each and house a multiplex, food-and-beverage brands, an entertainment zone, and a hotel. Second in line will be the Treasure Bazaar, followed by Treasure Market City, which will be a large-format mall spread across one million square feet of space.
This fiscal, three of the planned projects are expected to be complete. Indore Central in Indore, which is being developed in tie-up with Future Group, will be operational in October this year, followed by Treasure Bazaar at Nanded in December. February 2009 will see the opening of Treasure Island in Raipur.
Discussing development challenges in tier-II towns, Sundaram said, “Organised retail is still in its infancy in India, and more so in the tier-II and emerging towns. Thrust areas in such towns would be the development of skilled resources, supply chain, basic infrastructure and connectivity to larger markets.”
Citing the example of Wal-Mart, Sundaram stated that for retailers there is tremendous opportunity in tier-II towns, and that the company is in process of tying up with retailers and providing them desired retail space in these towns.
Answering Indiaretailing’s query on the company’s initiative on going ‘green’, Sundaram stated, “Environment and neighbourhood are priority for us. While most organisations limit themselves to conservation of power and water, we also believe in sustainability of the neighbourhood – from designs that cater to the spurt in vehicular traffic in the area, to ensuring that baby-care stations/rooms are provided for in the malls, where the market is comprised predominantly by a younger population. Special facilities for the physically challenged are also provided. Moreover, we prefer hiring from within the local population.”
– Ranjan Kaplish
