Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA)-backed Lake Shore India Advisory is confident about turning around the fortunes of a mall in Pune, which had already changed hands three times and failed to work so far. Lake Shore acquired the property, located at Koregaon Park, Pune’s most affluent residential neighbourhood, in 2019, and has rebuilt it. The property has been branded `Kopa’ with luxury lifestyle brands and a multiplex. This investment was part of the Lake Shore Retail Venture Fund. Kopa opened its doors to customers on Saturday.
The property, initially known as Koregaon Park Plaza, was first owned by Israeli firm Elbit Imaging. It had opened in 2012 with brands such as Spar, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, US Polo and the PVR Multiplex. It also had 2,00,000 sq ft office space. The mall failed to be successful. In 2015, Bengaluru-based Nitesh Estates bought it for Rs 250 crore but failed to turn it around, running into losses for three years. Nitesh then sold the this one-million sq. ft. property to Pune-based developer ABIL Group for Rs 276 crore. ABIL, along with RMZ, are developing the office space but sold off the retail property to Lake Shore. As per industry sources, the total project cost is estimated to be around $ 45-50 million (Rs 375-415 crore).
Anuj Kejriwal, CEO and managing director, Anarock Retail, said the drawback of the previous Koreagon Park Mall was that it was positioned like all other malls in Pune, had no distinguishing features and was badly positioned and tenanted. It was also much smaller compared to the others. “The entire positioning equation was wrong, and the consumer was confused about what it stood for. While the location is premium, it did not exude a premium feel and tried to play to too many different galleries,” Kejriwal said.
The new owner, Lake Shore has addressed these issues. Ashwin Puri, managing director and CEO, Lake Shore, was confident of turning around the mall and said 100% of the mall space had been leased to tenants dominated by luxury brands. Demand had outstripped supply, he said. The mall had not worked because consumers here wanted a more high-end experience, Puri said.
The mall is expected to get a boost from the development of a two to three million sq. ft. of Grade A commercial office space around Koregaon Park, including the ABIL-RMZ office development next door. This was expected to bring footfall into the mall. Lake Shore downsized the mall from 6,00,000 sq. ft to 3,25,000 sq ft to convert it into a curated high-end bespoke experience, Puri said. “Projects built 20 years ago are not relevant and need to be re-imagined,” Puri said.
Luxury brands were keen on entering the Pune market but could not find the right location and Kopa has been a destination for these brands, Puri said. Kopa has facilitated faster expansion for these brands, he added.
Anarock’s Kejriwals says the Kopa Mall is unmistakably a luxury offering and the target consumer segment is very well defined. “Unlike its predecessor, it is premium at the DNA level and not just in bits and pieces. Unlike the previous mall, it also has a strong F&B offering,” Kejriwal said.
Lake Shore is a pan-India investor, developer and operator, focused on the retail space with around 3.5 million retail space housing 700 brands across four cities. The fund has largely expanded in the country through the acquisition route and the Kopa mall is among the acquisitions. Other acquisitions have been in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Gurugram.
Kopa will host a curated collection of over 100 brands, including Michael Kors, West Elm, White Crow, Victoria’s Secret, Nappa Dori, Hugo Boss, Brooks Brothers and Tumi, all of which are now accessible to Pune consumers for the very first time. Other marquee brands making their debut in Pune are Nicobar, Armani Exchange and Jaipur Watch Company. PVR Cinemas is bringing their Director’s Cut brand of cinema to Kopa. The mall has 30 F&B brands as a part of its dining brand ‘Village’.
Another mall that failed to take off was the Inorbit Mall on the Pune-Nagar Road. This was largely blamed on oversupply in one location. Inorbit was a smaller mall and lost out to the 1.19 million Phoenix Marketcity mall that came up nearby. There was a fire at the Inorbit Mall in 2013, following which some brands moved out and the mall was re-purposed into commercial office space in 2016.