A friend sent me to an interesting mini documentary about the world's largest shopping mall - South China Mall in Dongguan, China. It's a fascinating video, because it turns out that the largest mall in the world is not.
The mall has space for over 2000 tenants, plus a replica of the Arc de Triomphe, a replica of Venice's St Mark's bell tower, a canal with gondolas, and an indoor-outdoor roller coaster.
Unfortunately, the mall is 99% unoccupied. And unlike most other "dead" malls, South China Mall never was filled with stores. (Or even close to a quarter filled!) It was stillborn from the very beginning.
What really struck me from the video was when someone mentioned that the giant mall was the first mall people in that area had ever seen. Not just the biggest one they'd ever seen - the very first mall they'd ever seen.
And that was probably the problem. The whole idea of a mall was so far beyond the normal everyday needs of the people in that area that they simply didn't get why they should go to one.
That's the risk with pushing the envelope... there's a chance you can go too far. In order to fully appreciate a great new idea (and make it a success) it has to have points of reference in its customers' current lives.
It's the difference between giving people a radically new way to carry around their favorite music (iPod) versus needing to convince them that they want to bring it with them in the first place. In the first case, people see the value instantly. In the second case, they might never see it.
If you're interested, watch the 13 minute mini-documentary on the South China Mall here. It's spooky how deserted the place is - especially for what looks like such an amazing mall (for us mall-lovers here in the snow-covered north!)
What they need to do is think of what the building is good for other than as a pure retail mall, and also consider the housing aspect. Many big malls today are built with a condominium portion so that there's a captive audience for the mall. Unfortunately, it may be hard to get people to buy condos on a project already deemed a failure. However, there must be a need for cheap office space, and parts of the mall must make an interesting tourist destination if advertised as such. Perhaps certain industries need a large amount of indoor space, or can conduct business mainly through the internet (e.g., software industry or call centers). Perhaps it would be good for a film studio, or they could open a school there. If the facilities are nicer than local government buildings, they could house government offices there.
Posted by: Jonathan | March 03, 2011 at 02:40 PM