The COVID pandemic has changed the world in every sphere of life, be it health condition, business, trade, entertainment industry, tourism, travel industry, hospitality sector or everyday life. As per the real estate consulting firm Anarock, the occupancy at malls and commercial complex have not reached pre covid levels despite reduced rentals and top retailers buying marquee properties across the country. As per the latest data issued by Anarock, vacancies at malls in metro cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru have increased from 50 to 530 basis points, compared to a year ago.
Mumbai city was the only one that witnessed malls vacancy went down by 390 bps. Leading mall developers have said that they are hopeful that malls occupancy gets completed by March next year. As per the Executive Director, Abhishek Bansal, of Pacific group, it is said that about ten brands are on the verge of finishing fit-out in 30-45 days that will make occupancy to 97-98% in its 3 malls in Delhi-NCR.
The new revenue share model is what retailers have switched to in which they paid high fixed monthly sum to the mall owners. Talking about M3M Gurgaon, then this leading real estate developer has launched M3M commercial property in Gurgaon which further indicates boost in realty market. Today, M3M Gurgaon has 13 lucrative commercial projects out of which M3M Urbana, M3M Tee Point, M3M One Key Resiments are delivered.
As said by Anuj Puri, Chairman – ANAROCK Property Consultants “Some retailers are holding on to their leases because rather than starting afresh when the situation improves and spending more on set-up, they prefer to hold on and enter into win-win deals with the mall owners,”
Malls have reopened since Jun- top markets – including Delhi and Mumbai – permitted that only a month later, which led to consumers transferring to online channels. Though the consumers have moved to online purchases, the brands expect physical retail to bounce back to pre-Covid levels in the next few months.
Consequently, top brands are proactively opening stores to exploit the low rental costs and less competition. M3M Gurgaon has ensured that it remains unaffected by realty slowdown caused by COVID. Therefore the leading developer has kept on developing M3M Commercial project in Gurgaon such as M3M Broadway, M3M Skylofts, M3M Corner walk, M3M Urbana Premium, M3M IFC, M3M 65th Avenue etc.
“Lot of top malls in metros and top cities corrected their portfolio by shrinking spaces as well as easing out low performing brands and reassigning it for top performing category leading brands like Levi’s which offer significantly higher revenue density and footfalls,” said Sanjeev Mohanty, managing director, South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Levi Strauss & Co that has doubled and even trebled its store size in many cases while also relocating to better positions in the mall.
