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CapitaLand announced today (13 November) that it has completed the largest shopping centre in its portfolio following the recent opening of Suzhou Center Mall in China.
With a gross floor area (GFA) of nearly 300,000 sq m excluding car park, the company’s first mall in Suzhou is not only the largest shopping centre in the city, but also more than three times the size of Singapore’s ION Orchard.
“The successful opening of Suzhou Center Mall caps a record year for CapitaLand. Close to one million sq m of retail GFA across eight developments turned operational in 2017, marking our largest ever retail GFA offering in a single year,” said CapitaLand’s CEO Lim Ming Yan.
Notably, the seven-storey property was designed by award-winning architectural firm Benoy, and features the world’s largest free-form monocoque roof at more than 36,000 sq m that looks like a pair of phoenix wings.
On its opening day on 11 November, over 400,000 eager shoppers visited the mall and more 90 percent for its net lettable area of about 152,000 sq m were occupied.
Anchor tenants among its over 600 brands include Suzhou’s first CGV cinemas and first Fanpekka children’s theme park, as well as an Olympic-size ice rink run by Champion Rink. In fact, around 30 percent of the mall’s shops are new entrants to the city, like Forever 21, HAY furniture store and Victoria’s Secret, while Zara and H&M will operate their biggest outlets there in triplex stores.
Moreover, Suzhou Center Mall forms the centrepiece of the Suzhou Centre project that consists of two upscale residential towers, four Grade A office blocks and W Suzhou hotel tower.
With an overall GFA of 1.13 million sq m, the integrated development near the historic Jinji Lake is directly connected to two metro lines and is touted as the city’s new central business district (CBD).
It is master developed by state-owned Suzhou Industrial Park’s subsidiary Suzhou Hengtai Holding Group Co Ltd, while CapitaLand’s wholly-owned unit CapitaLand Mall Asia co-owns that shopping mall and two 21-storey office towers, which opened earlier in Q3 2017.
This article was edited by Keshia Faculin.
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