Shop 'til you drop

The development of shopping malls in the region surged in recent years.

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The development of shopping malls in the region surged in recent years, but many of the mall projects that will be completed are coming to a conclusion.

From their humble beginnings as simple extensions to supermarkets and key department stores, shopping malls have become more than simply a place to buy clothes and search for a bargain.

Mega-malls have sprouted up everywhere, offering shoppers more variety and an ever widening range of associated activities to keep them entertained. Malls are no longer simply places to shop: they’re one-stop entertainment, shopping and social venues.

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Dubai’s landmark Mall of the Emirates, with its indoor ski slope, Dubai Mall – with its aquarium, underwater zoo, multiplex cinema and four cornerstone retailers, and the newly opened Mirdif City Centre mall, with its Leeds Gold rating for environmental design, are premium examples of just how far mall development has advanced in recent years.

With other countries in the GCC and MENA regions set to follow suit, the future of mall design is an exciting one.

Majid Al Futtaim Properties is one of Dubai’s leading mall development and management companies – and senior vice president of Project Management Jonathan Emery joined the team in 2008 to re-establish an internal project management department, set up in response to an increased work load for the company in the UAE and MENA region.

It is Emery’s job to pull developments, such as the recently opened 196,000m³ Mirdif City Centre, through to delivery. Even when faced with the double whammy of an ambitious, immovable deadline and a construction boom that put a premium on some building supplies and packages, Emery’s team was able to manage costs, keep suppliers happy and move at a speedy pace to deliver the project on time.

“Having built malls before we sort of knew some of the risks associated with a project this size anywhere in the world, but also some of the particular local issues. Essentially, we worked hard at mitigating those risks so we identified them at a very early stage and put in place the mitigation measures.”

“We worked very hard with the retailers and our leasing team, as well as our construction team to explain to them our ambition to open on March 16 and we put in extra resources so that we can turn around their designs and supporting technical documentation early,” says Emery.

Constant climate conditions and terrain provide unique challenges for mall developers in the Middle East. Mirdif has its own cooling plant and sub-station, but a number of passive elements were designed into the building by architects, to minimise the draw on demand from the HVAC systems.