Saigon shopping mall set for makeover

According to Peter Dinning, general director of Colliers International Vietnam - Kumho Asiana Plaza Saigon’s (KAPS) asset management agency - project developer Kumho Asiana Group is expected to approve the new concept in the next two weeks.

“The new concept will enhance the overall development and provide services that will benefit not only the general public but all the users in the office, service apartment and hotel towers,” said Dinning, declining to reveal the concept’s details.

Opened in late December 2009 on Le Duan Street in District 1, the near 7,000sqm KAPS shopping mall has two full floors of premium shopping located in the three-part Kumho Asiana Plaza complex. The retail podium links together the five-star Intercontinental Hotel, luxury serviced residences and an international Grade A office tower.

Tenants had occupied up to 85 per cent of the shopping mall by the time it was inaugurated with the presence of well-known British department store Debenhams on the ground floor and the US Hard Rock Café in the basement, according to Colliers International Vietnam’s statement released at the project’s grand opening ceremony.

The largest tenant in KAPS, Viet Thai International Joint Stock Company (VTI) – Vietnam’s Debenhams franchisee - has, however, lately decided to move its department store to Vincom Shopping Centre on Le Thanh Ton Street, which is located within a walking distance from KAPS.

Munish Rishi, manager of Debenhams in Vietnam said that VTI planned to re-launch the brand at Vincom before the lunar New Year holidays. “The new venue is expected to bring more value and shopping experiences to consumers of Debenhams in Vietnam as it fits well with Debenhams’s brand code, which offers complete fashion themes within a community and family entertainment atmosphere,” Rishi said, adding that “KAPS’s retail area is not a 100 per cent shopping mall with just two floors, and it is also going to have a new concept, so we decided to move out”.