The fourth instalment in our occasional mall-ology series comes from Fujairah’s biggest malls, Fujairah City Centre and the spanking-new Fujairah Mall.
A sales assistant speaks
“It is not a busy mall. Even at the weekends we do not see the custom. Maybe some shops are busy, like Carrefour, but even lunchtimes are slow.”
- A sales assistant in the fast food court gives his take on Fujairah City Centre.
What are the selling points?
Fujairah may have a population just shy of 200,000 but the geographical footprint suggests that there is a population of 450,000 with easy access to its malls, including people in the town of Kalba in the enclave of Sharjah.
Fujairah City Centre opened in 2012, covering 34,000 square metres of gross leasable area. An 11-screen cinema opened in 2013. In December, the emirate gained another mall, Fujairah Mall, the biggest in the emirate. With 38,500 sq metres of gross leasable area, it has space for 175 outlets, 60 of those shops, plus more than two levels of underground parking. A six- screen cinema is to open next month.
The sparkling new mall sits only a few kilometres from the emirate’s previous largest mall, Fujairah City Centre, which is owned and operated by the formidable Majid Al Futtaim Group, which runs another six malls in the UAE. The proximity is slightly jarring, as it is almost possible to see one mall from the other, but Fujairah’s infrastructure and town planning makes the ease of access to both malls sitting on the new main road into Fujairah from the southern emirates understandable.
Tracking footfall
I visited both malls on a Tuesday afternoon between 1pm and 3pm. I will start with the newest, Fujairah Mall.
While Fujairah Mall officially opened in December, it still has plenty of workers outfitting shops behind hoardings that hold the promise of future occupants. The Geant hypermarket, an anchor tenant, has now, belatedly, opened and given a reason for grocery shoppers to visit the mall and, according to its sales assistants, gets busy “after 4 o’clock”. The other anchor tenant is the Kart & Shoot, the go-karting and laser tagging arenas that should provide decent footfall once the schools are out. The management of the mall, Aswaq Asset Management, says that the mall is now 52 per cent occupied – but with so many empty shops, it feels like less – with agreements that it will be 70 per cent occupied when the six-screen cinema opens in March. It has Fujairah “firsts” such as a Paul cafe and a Mango.
Five minutes up the road, Fujairah City Centre had a full car park, although it does not have underground parking. Business seemed to be on the slow side. The Maf group has a successful chain of malls and rarely strays from the retail, food and beverage and entertainment formula that has enabled it to dominate Dubai’s mall landscape. Carrefour, the anchor tenant, was busy but the shops, kiosks, coffee and food outlets were sparsely populated. Sales assistants that I spoke to said that the weekends could be busy but generally trade was sluggish – the cinema and Carrefour were important assets for driving visitor numbers.
The outlook
With the retail climate softening through 2015 because of the strong US dollar, weak euro and the fall in Russian travellers, any new mall opening has to be tempered in its expectations.
“Last year was horrible for retailers,” said Guillaume Darlix, Aswaq’s chief commercial officer. “We have had delays in opening because of some municipal bureaucracy and the current retail climate. However, the mall is beautiful and our occupants are not here for a week or a year, they are here for three to five years and we have every confidence that we will be 95 per cent occupied by the end of 2016. We now have our Kart & Shoot entertainment open so the two anchors are in place. When the cinema opens in March the mall will be a different environment.”
One industry watcher has an equally sanguine view of the environment and the geography that the two malls serve.
“Fujairah is not Dubai, therefore it doesn’t act like Dubai,” said David Macadam, the chief executive of the Middle East Centre for Shopping Centres. “It has an international airport and some fabulous beach resorts, but its visitors are not the same as you may see in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. The retail offering has to be tailored to those visitors. Tourist like to buy things, and more malls mean more places to visit, which is great for Fujairah. Also Fujairah’s residents don’t have to drive to Dubai to find outlets that are now on their doorstep.”
Any hidden gems?
While Fujairah Mall had few outlets open it has a first in the UAE – O’Learys Sports Restaurant, a Boston-inspired, US sports-themed restaurant. It is a great casual dining outlet that was surprising to find in Fujairah. It abuts the indoor go-kart track with a glass wall between the two – so you can eat a burger as you watch your kids act like Lewis Hamilton.
In conclusion
The drive to Fujairah is a wonderful journey and for visitors, Fujairah’s malls are a welcome addition to the retail mix, offering both contemporary products and food options. Both Maf and Aswaq are offering something that was not provided before and have given Fujairah a fillip for the local population and visitors. The malls will thrive, but in a different way to the likes of Dubai. Fujairah isn’t Dubai, as any visitor will tell you, so why should its malls be similar?
ascott@thenational.ae
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