Malls, growing in glamour and girth
Shopping centres are sprouting up all over the city like mushrooms and shoppers throng the malls like there's no tomorrow
by SHAFIQ RAHMAN
Jamuna Future Park, Dhaka humungous shopping mall, is about to open this year. Yet another chapter opens in Dhaka's city life.
Everyone has been waiting for the mall to open and much curiousity, and controversy, surrounds it. This is the first time a mall of such massive proportions has opened in Bangladesh. This is supposed to be the biggest mall in Asia.
Actually, malls have been sprouting up all over the city over the past two decades, albeit of more modest proportions. And these have been very popular among Dhaka's shoppers who throng the malls from opening to closing time.
It all began with New Market, once the city's most popular 'hang out'. In fact, New Market is regarded as a milestone among Dhaka's modern shopping centres. Prof. Dr. Abu Sayeed M. Ahmed, Chairman of the Architecture Department of the University of Asia Pacific, regards this as a "breaking point". He says, "The social scene was totally different at the time that New Market was established. Previously, it was the men who would mostly do the shopping. It was almost unthinkable that a woman would go shopping. There were so many restrictions on women's movement. Rickshaws would have cloth wrapped all around to conceal the women passengers inside. It was at such a time that New Market was founded. It was then that the breakthrough was made and women began to go out shopping."
He adds, "And the architectural design was also such that it made women feel safe to go shopping once they entered the market."
New Market had all sorts of shops, cafes, photograph studios, a mosque -- a great place for people to hang out. People still remember their regular adda at New Market, taking pictures at Aks Studio, coming surreptitiously to see prospective brides or grooms, etc. "It was a great recreational place," says Dr. Abu Sayeed, "Not just a shopping centre. It was slightly on the outskirts of the town in those days, just away from Old Dhaka. Dhanmondi hadn't been developed at the time."
New Market was established in 1954 on a 25-acre plot of land. It was called Government New Market and was under the Public World Department. In 1985 it was placed under Dhaka Municipality and it was then named New Market.
Initially the rule was that no other shopping market could be built within a three-mile radius of New Market. That rule, however, didn't stick and other markets sprouted up in locale -- Gausia Market, Dhanmondi Hawkers' Market, Chadni Chawk and more. Now there are innumerable shopping centres in the area, along Mirpur Road and Elephant Road.
After New Market, the shopping centre which caught public popularity was Mouchak Market. This was set up in the early eighties.
Then came a whole succession of shopping centres, each smarter and shinier than the one before. There was Polwel Market, Eastern Plaza, Rapa Plaza, Century Arcade, Rifles Square, Metro Shopping Mall and more. These were all air-conditioned, fitted with elevators and escalators. In Gulshan, Pink City still remains the most 'upmarket' mall in town, catering mostly to women's fashion. Despite the steep prices, the mall does brisk business. Then came along the biggest mall of the country at the time, Basundhara Shopping Mall.
This massive mall, alongside its shops and eateries, had a cineplex for screening popular movies from home and abroad. It had shops with local and foreign brands, a food court and more. Yet another "breaking point", says Dr. Abu Sayeed: "These shopping malls also brought changes to our trends in shopping. Window shopping became a big trend -- not everyone went to buy anything specific. These large, cool and attractive malls beckoned the window shopper to browse around with no particular mission in the market. Shopping was often just on impulse, if anything caught the fancy."
It was Basundhara Group which set up the Basundhara shopping mall in 2004. Seeing the immense popularity of this mall, another corporate group of the company, Jamuna, then set about to establish an even bigger mall -- Jamuna Future Park.
Jamuna Future Park has been set up on a 120 bigha plot of land. The authorities are claiming that this is the third largest mall in the world, the largest in Asia. It is nine-storeys high with a covered area of 4.1 million square feet.
In 2008 the authorities began selling the shop spaces in the mall, but then suddenly stopped after 117 shops were sold. They say they wanted to make the mall fully functional before it opened. Some persons might buy the shop space but not open the shop and this would mar the overall operation of the mall. It would leave various zones of the mall idle. This would discourage shoppers from even visiting the shops which were open. So they decided to stop selling shop space and think up different and more effective options.
And official of Jamuna Group says they had two options before them, profit sharing or renting out shop space. The authorities finally decided on renting out shop space and began doing so towards the end of 2010.
AHM Murshed Alam, Manager (Marketing and Sales) of Jamuna Builders Limited, says that they maintain strict rules in renting out the space: "We only rent out space to professional businessmen to ensure that the market will be fully functioning."
So the sixth floor of Jamuna Future Park will be handed over sometime in the middle of this year and it will then open to the public. This floor with an area of 450 thousand will have a food court and an indoor children's park. The spaces on the other floors will then gradually be handed over. The ground to second floor will have men's wear and women's wear, the third floor will be for jewellry and watches, the fourth and fifth floor will be for leather items, tailoring, mobile phones, books and stationery. The mall will also have seven movie theatres, a gym, banquet hall and more.
AHM Murshed Alam says that alongside local brands, the mall will have show rooms for foreign brands too. Jamuna Future Park people have already contacted foreign brands in this regard. A number of Indian jewellry firms have responded positively.
Back to government markets, other than New Market, there are the Gulshan 1 and Gulshan 2 DIT markets, popular among both local and foreign customers.
Source: ProbeNews