Saturday, January 23, 2010

VivoCity Xi’an signs first anchor tenant

MAPLETREE Investments yesterday said it signed on Golden Harvest Cinema as its first anchor tenant for VivoCity Xi’an, its maiden retail mall in China.

The mall, which is part of a 200,000 square metre integrated residential and retail development called Future City, is the group’s first VivoCity to be built outside Singapore.

Mapletree said in a press statement yesterday that the group plans to open more VivoCity malls in China and the rest of Asia. Work on its second VivoCity mall in China will start soon. This latest mall is located in Nanhai.

VivoCity Xi’an, scheduled to open in December this year, will be a one-stop family lifestyle mall with a gross floor area of about 62,500 square metres over four levels. It will offer consumers a mix of shopping, dining and entertainment options. Golden Harvest Cinema is taking up a total of 2,317 sq m of space, or close to 6 per cent of the total lettable space.

Mapletree is in advanced talks with several retailers for a further 30 per cent space in the mall. It expects to sign on two more anchor tenants – a supermarket and a food court operator – as well as several mini anchors in the fashion, food and beverage and entertainment trade in the next couple of months.

Hiew Yoon Khong, chief executive officer of Mapletree, said the Future City project underscores the importance of China as an investment location for Mapletree. So far, Mapletree has sold more than 80 per cent of the 1,017 residential units launched for Future City. The remaining 351 units will be released soon.

Future City is undertaken by a US$1.16 billion Mapletree-sponsored private real estate fund called Mapletree India China Fund which invests in commercial, residential or mixed-use integrated development projects in India and China.

The total investment in VivoCity Xi’an is about 550 million yuan (S$113 million). The other assets currently in this fund include Nanhai Business City in Foshan and Mapletree Tower in Beijing.

Source: Business Times, 23 Jan 2010

No comments:

Post a Comment