Kolkata: Kolkata is fast emerging as the new hotspot for retail, indicates a Cushman & Wakefield survey, which pegs mall space occupancy in the city in the third quarter at 95%. The eastern city, which till some years ago had only one mall, the Forum Mall in central Kolkata, now has a string of them — the Mani Square Mall, Avani Mall and the newly inaugurated Quest Mall, to name a few.
In its 'Retail Q3 Report', the real estate consultancy says that mall space in the city could go up by another 440,000 square feet in the coming months.
"With new malls in the city, the contribution of grade A spaces to the overall net absorption till Q3 has increased to 93% as compared to 86% last year during the same period," said Sanjay Dutt, executive managing director, South Asia, Cushman & Wakefield.
While grade A spaces dominated market ac tivity in the city, overall vacancy level in malls stood at 4.4%, down 0.2 percentage point from the previous quarter.
For the first three quarters of 2013, supply of space under all grades was 1.26 million square ft, up 22% from a year ago.
About 420,000 sq ft of retail and F&B space was added to the mall inventory with the inauguration of the first phase of Quest Mall at Syed Amir Ali Avenue in September. being developed by CESC Properties.
The Quest Mall offers about 420,000 sq ft of retail and F&B space and about 328,000 sq ft of parking space. While the ground floor houses luxury brands, the floors above are occupied by premium and bridge brands.
Acropolis, a Rs 350-crore PPP between KMDA and Merlin Projects off the Rashbehari-EM Bypass connector is expected to be ready in another six months. The integrated project will offer 8 lakh sq ft of mixed-use development area. Spread across 6.5 acres of land, the retail space in the mall is expected to be about 3 lakh sq ft.
The total number of outlets at Acropolis would be around 90. Though the mall shall concentrate on bridge brands, in the entertainment and retail space it also boasts of quite a few firsts.
For movie aficionados there will be Cinepolis, the world's fourth largest and India's first international cinema exhibitor.
"We are excited to enter Kolkata. We perceive the market to have a deficit in terms of supply of multiplex screens and we hope to take an advantage of this," said Ashish Shukla, country head, Cinepolis India.
The phenomenal growth in the city's retail space is also drawing national and international brands. Among the labels gearing up to enter the Kolkata market are Burberry, Furla, Canali, Emporio Armani, Michael Kors, Gucci, Armani Jeans, Tumi and Paul Smith.
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