Express Avenue, Chennai, promoted by Express Infrastructure, which was set to soft launch on April 1, 2010 has been postponed to April 28, 2010.
Built on an area of 10 acres, Express Avenue is to combine a shopping centre, a business centre, hotel and cinema multiplex. With the retail area of approximately nine lakh square feet (excluding hotel and commercial area) with more than 200 shops, an eight-screen multiplex, 1300 seat food court and car parking for more than 1,800 cars, Express Avenue boasts of revolutionising the shopping experience for visitors. Five to six storeys tower blocks for the hotel and commercial offices will anchor either end of the development with the retail component occupying four floors, totalling almost one million square feet of retail space, located in the centre. The anchor tenant, Big Bazaar, will occupy 85,000 square feet area in the property. The mall will house an array of luxury and premium brands.
“The other anchors of this property are Lifestyle and Westside whose retail size in the property vary from 30,000 square feet to 85,000 square feet where as mini anchors include Hamleys, Marks & Spencer and Max Lifestyle taking close to the area of 20,000 square feet each in the property. The other brands in the mall include DKNY, Calvin Klein, FCUK, Esprit, Boggie, Alcott, M.A.C., Guess, OVS, Lacoste, The Body Shop, Canali, Paul Smith, Omega, Tag Heuer etc, taking on a average of 1000 to 1500 square feet each. Over 160 vanilla brands are coming to Chennai for the first time,” Dheeraj Dogra, chief marketing officer, Express Avenue tells IndiaRetailing.
Currently, the property is over 90 per cent leased out. Talking about the rental model Dogra says, “Most of the transactions have been done with a minimum guarantee or revenue sharing, whichever is higher.”
The total investment in opening this seven-storey mixed-use-property stands at around Rs.750 crores whose total area inclusive of the parking is 1.5 million square feet. The mall will be fully operational by the end of May 2010.
— Diwakar Kumar
