Central Pattana (CPN), Thailand’s largest retail developer announced this week that it will be moving ahead with the construction of a new Bangkok shopping mall. CPN has also reported a surge in shopper-traffic at many malls in and around Bangkok, with the single yet significant exception of the CentralWorld shopping mall, which has been hit hard by political unrest.
CPN’s future new mall, CentralPlaza Nakhonratchasima, will be located on 52 rai (8.2 hectares) outside the Nakhon Ratchasima city centre and will cost roughly Bt7 billion. Construction will start this May and will be scheduled to open officially in early 2016. It will be CPN’s 28th shopping centre in Thailand.
Many of CPN’s other shopping malls have been performing quite well in recent months, despite political unrest. In fact, CentralPlaza Grand Rama 9 has seen an 18% increase in shopper-traffic, and an 8% increase was seen in CentralPlaza Ladprao’s shopper-traffic.
The mall at CentralWorld however has experienced hard hits in traffic and profit, as it contains the plaza that has consistently been the site for the biggest protests. After months of protestors camping out and deterring shoppers from spending at CentralWorld, CPN has declared that it will lower rent prices (amount undisclosed) for the mall’s 500 commercial real estate tenants.
The lowering of rental fees due to political unrest is nothing new to many of the tenants in CentralWorld, as CPN cut rent by 20-30 percent in 2010 after political rioting led to Zen Department store being set on fire. The mall was closed for seven months and tenants suffered major losses due to renovation.
