Retail, entertainment and hospitality brands will feature in a planned City Centre development including a Bukit Bintang mall in Kuala Lumpur.
“The mall will transform the retail landscape in Kuala Lumpur, catering to all shopping needs with the introduction of home-grown and new-to-market international brands,” says Eco World Development, which is part of the joint venture planning the $400 million project.
Other signatories to the heads-of-terms agreement signed in Kuala Lumpur are BBCC Development,Mitsui Fudosan (Asia) and Zepp Hall Network. Eco World Development says the project will have an estimated gross development cost (GDC) of RM1.6 billion (US$400 million) and cover 19.4 acres (7.8ha) of mixed residential and commercial development, with UDA Holdings and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) also as partners.
Under the agreement, the retail mall will be owned and run through a joint-venture company, Mall JVCo.
Phase one of the project will be a 45-storey block of strata offices and two blocks of serviced residences, comprising of 680 units, with construction to begin in the third quarter of this year.
Mitsui Fudosan will jointly develop a 1.4 million sqft (126,000 sqm) lifestyle retail mall, while Zepp Hall is investing in a 2000-seat event hall, the first of its kind outside Japan. Zepp Hall is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), and its core business is running venues. Its concert hall will be in the Entertainment Block in BBCC, next to the mall.
The project is expected to also get underway in the third quarter, and take eight to 10 years to develop. The Mall JVCo is proposed to be equally owned by Mitsui Fudosan Asia and the shareholders of BBCC.
“This substantial investment by Mitsui Fudosan Asia represents the largest retail investment to date by the group outside Japan,” says Eco World.
The mall will be developed under the Mitsui Shopping Park LaLaport brand, a regional mall concept conceived by Mitsui Fudosan more than 35 years ago. The concept has evolved from “a place where people gather” to “a place where people interact”.
BBCC also signed a MoU with Ascott, a member of Singapore’s CapitaLand and the largest international serviced-residence owner-operator in the world, with more than 45,000 units in 290 properties, spanning 100 cities in 27 countries.