The towering glory and the declining business

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In case of FR Mall, there are 14 shops, apart from the gaming area, food court and four auditoriums for screening movies. However, at present, only seven shops are occupied. From a footfall of over two lakh visitors per month in the initial days, the number of visitors to the mall has come down to one lakh per month at present.

One of the reasons for the decline in the footfall in the malls was the opening of Elante Mall in the Industrial Area that attracted a lot of crowd and now enjoys a footfall of around 1.95 million monthly, much higher than any of the malls in the Tricity.

Talking about the initial days, one of the officials of the FR Mall, which is managed by Mumbai-based Essel Group, says, “In those days, we used to have outlets for music CDs, VCDs, as a lot of people used to come and buy that stuff. There were clothing brands, and people from all sections, including children, would come here in large numbers. There were film festivals where old movies would be screened. Different festivals would be celebrated, but trends change with time, and so does the market.”
While initially people were drawn to the malls with curiosity to experience shopping, multiplex and entertainment under one roof, mall officials say that now people now have lots of options, and they prefer to avail the facilities of the nearest mall.

Apart from McDonalds, CCD, there are some clothing brands too, including No Exit, which are functioning in the mall. The gaming area is still visited by children, though in relatively lesser numbers.

Unlike other big malls coming up in Chandigarh, FR continues to run from the old building popularly known as ‘Dhillion theatre’, under the laid down restrictions of building bylaws. Most of the visitors to the mall now include residents of Manimajra, Panchkula and few others from Kalka and Pinjore, since the mall is situated on the Kalka-Chandigarh road.

Although the Uppal’s Centra Mall was the first mall in the city to have PVR Cinemas, it has never been able to attract a large number of crowd since its inception. PVR Cinemas manage to give the mall a decent footfall but everyone comes here just to watch a movie.
The mall has not been able to attract good brands, shops or showrooms. The commercial project of the company in Chandigarh, Centra Mall, was inaugurated in July 2008 and space was provided for 50 stores. In the following years, only 20 brands opened their outlets at Centra and the remaining shops remained vacant.
At present, 60 per cent space is unoccupied. The stores like Cafe Coffee Day, Archies on the ground floor or a food outlet on the third floor do not exist any more. As per the officials, currently, there are around 15 stores at the mall where some offices are being run, there is one night club at the third floor while around 35 stores are unoccupied. The officials say that it is because of the high prices that nobody is willing to buy a store here and another reason is the nearest crowd-puller mall, Elante.

Only because of the PVR Cinemas, the Centra Mall receives a footfall of around 40,000 per moth. The officials add that on a daily basis, around 300-400 people come but the rush increases on the weekends.
City Centre DLF or DT Mall, as it is commonly known due to the presence of DT Cinemas, is in the process of a revamp. Soon, the mall would have an entertainment zone which will offer something for people of all age groups.
Spread over an area of two lakh square feet, the mall is situated in the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park. A total of 65 shops are permissible on the two floors of the mall. At present, the occupancy is 68 per cent.

Caroline Dangwal, AGM (Mall Management), says, “We have tied up with Smaaash which will be setting up an entertainment zone on the first floor. With this, the occupancy of the mall will be 100 per cent. It would also attract more footfall as there will be something for everyone.”

The mall has a footfall of around two lakh a month. When the mall had started, the footfall was much higher. After the advent of Elante Mall, the footfall reduced to almost half. The process of rebranding then started. The mall is now the Tricity’s first premium outlet mall.
“At one point of time, there was a flow of brands out of the mall. We then made a shift in strategy. We started offering people a variety of brands at lesser prices than these were available at other malls. The people who come here are those who want to shop and not just spend some time in a mall. We are attracting people from Panchkula, Manimajra and other parts of Chandigarh,” says Dangwal.

Several brands like W, Wrangler, Madame, United Colours of Benetton, Park Avenue, Arrow, etc are present here. DT Cinemas has three movie halls with a seating capacity of 800.
City Emporium Mall in the Industrial Area has been in operation since 2013. However, in the last two years, the business at the mall has never caught up, and to date, only five-seven stores are in operation. About 120 shops in the mall are still lying vacant, and the mall hardly sees any visitors. Last month, Italian superbike brand DSK Benelli opened its store at the City Emporium Mall.

Officials say that the mall never picked up due to its proximity to Elante Mall. An official at the mall says, “The opening of Elante never let business flourish here. It is just 500 metres away from here, and has all major stores one can think of. More often than not, all these stores have a policy of not opening another outlet within about 3 km radius of an existing one, which is the problem.”
The only attraction at the mall is the Wave Cinemas on the top floor, which has four screens and witnesses visitors almost on a daily basis. Other than that, the mall continues to wear a deserted look.

The Piccadily Square Mall in Sector 34 has about 10-12 stores on the first floor and a huge furnishing store on the second floor. Despite the small number of shops at the mall, officials at the mall say that it is faring well. On the top floor of the mall is the Piccadily Cinema. With four shows every day, the cinema is a preferred destination for many. “I come here only to catch movies, since it is near my house. It isn’t as crowded as the other bigger malls, and that is why I come here,” says Shraddha, a visitor to the mall.

The Periphery
It has been a year and a half when the North Country Mall, the biggest in north India, opened at Kharar. Since the opening of the mall, it has partially succeeded to attract people from Mohali and Kharar who used to go to Chandigarh for shopping and leisure. Although the mall is the first to start a shuttle bus service for its visitors, it is yet to gain the kind of footfall that Elante Mall attracts.
The mall, spread over 1.8 million square feet, is the biggest in the entire north India and is in the list of top five biggest malls of the country. According to the official figures of the mall, the footfall on the weekends is between 25,000 and 35,000 persons while on other days, it is 12,000 to 15,000.

At present, the mall has 49 anchor stores, 225 shops and nine screens. Out of a total of nine, two are gold class screens, making it the biggest in terms of the area. The occupancy in the mall is 70 per cent.

Terming the mall a success as within a year-and-a-half its occupancy has reached 70 per cent, general manager of the mall Col (Retd) Harsh Sachdev says the mall is attracting people even from Chandigarh.

Col Sachdeva says the newly constructed airport road has come as a boon for the mall, as people from Zirakpur will also come to the mall. It will take them almost the same time to reach the North Country Mall as it takes them to go to Elante in Chandigarh.

A shopkeeper, who is running a shop of branded clothes, says that they have started getting some good response now.

Earlier, it was very difficult for them to even pay the rent. He adds that VAT is higher in Punjab than in Chandigarh and Haryana, so people prefer Chandigarh for cheaper shopping.
Another mall on the periphery, Paras Downtown Square at Zirakpur, attracted people from Mohali, Panchkula and Chandigarh when it opened in 2009. The number of visitors was so huge that most of the brands opened their outlets here and within no time, it was soon transformed into a hangout place for public.

But, five years later, with the opening of many malls at different places, this mall is now witnessing a decline in footfall. The number of visitors, which was then around 20,000 a day, has today come down to 8,000. Besides, more than 30 shops are lying vacant.
“It was very difficult to manage such a huge number of people here when this was opened. There were long queues,” said a management official. “But it is not the same anymore.”
At present, out of 88 shops inside the mall, 55 are open. “The company has already sold out all the shops to the investors. Now around 30 shops are empty,” said Devinder Katoch, assistant manager (facility) of the Paras Downtown Mall.

“Most of the public goes to Elante Mall. Brands prefer to open their shops in such a place where people visit in huge numbers,” says Katoch. “At present we see a footfall of around 6,000-8,000 from Monday to Thursday. After the numbers started going down, shops also started getting closed.”

Arjun Kumar, a resident of Amritsar, who runs the Bunge Jumping game inside the mall premises, says his business has seen a decline in the last few years. “I keep waiting for customers during the day. Earlier I would get 80 customers a week; now for the entire week it is less than 20. The weekends are better.”

There are some who are optimistic that there will be a boom again inside the mall. Jagdesh, a manager of a multibrand outlet that opened recently in the mall, says he is hopeful that his store will do well in the coming time. “We opened this store one month back and so far we are doing good,” he says. “I am hopeful that we will do well, because in Elante, you can’t get good discount that we provide here.”
Many vendors say that reopening of factory outlets and opening of a discotheque will attract more footfall in the coming time.

(With inputs from Srishti Choudhary, Ifrah Mufti, Adil Akhzer, Jagdeep Singh Deep, Meghna Malik and Khushboo Sandhu)