We Are Getting More Shopping Area Yayyyyyyyy!

[waerth]

"Asked about the massive investments in Thailand's retail sector, Central's Isareit said he was not too concerned about the risk of oversupply of retail investment in the Ratchaprasong area.

"Look at Hong Kong. They have many CBDs [central business districts] even though they have a small population, and [they have many] tourists as well," he said."

Billions to be spent upgrading Ratchaprasong

 

http://www.nationmul...g-30252807.html

 

RETAIL and property giants yesterday announced a combined Bt60 billion worth of investment projects to turn the Ratchaprasong area into one of the top downtown districts in Asia, rivalling Singapore's Orchard Road, Japan's Ginza and Hong Kong's Central district.

 

Chai Srivikorn, president of the Ratchaprasong Square Trade Association, said new projects being developed by Central Group, Minor Group, The Erawan Group, Gaysorn Property Group, Platinum Group and other members of the association, would create "a major tourism phenomenon in Asia".

 

The retail, wholesale, hotel and MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) projects are expected to increase the number of tourists and other visitors to the area by 50-100 per cent to 600,000-800,000 per day, or 220 million people annually within the next three years.

 

Among the new projects is Central Group's plan to embark on the biggest-ever renovation of its CentralWorldshopping mall, the Bt7.5-billion The Market by Platinum project, the Gaysorn Tower 2 project valued at Bt5.8 billion, and Magnolia Group's Bt15-billion hotel and residential projects. Isareit Chirathivat, general manager of Central Pattana, said CentralWorld's renovations would encompass an expansion of its retail spaces including the Zen and Isetan department stores, the lifestyle dining zone, the Sky Walk elevated pathway, Centara hotel, and the participation of two or three new "international retail anchors".

 

The renovation works will commence in the first quarter of next year and take eight months to complete.

 

Isareit said the investment would exceed Bt10 billion, but he could not reveal more details until the project is approved by the company's board and reported to the stock-market authorities.

 

Chai said the in the next three years, the Ratchaprasong district would increase its office building area by 149,000 square metres, its hotel accommodation capacity by 3,900 rooms, its residential space by 382 units, and its convention area by 40,320 square metres.

 

At present, the Ratchaprasong area has 884,200 square metres of retail space. It attracts 400,000 visitors per day or 146 million yearly, 80 per cent of whom are Thais. Of the foreign visitors, 80 per cent are Asian travellers.

 

Chai said an important strategy was to make visitors to feel they are |"fulfilled" in making a one-day visit to Ratchaprasong, since statistics show the average stay of foreign tourists in Bangkok is just one and a half days.

 

Ratchaprasong will also capitalise on its "walkable urbanism", thanks to a Bt400-million investment that its members are makng to extend the "Skywalk" elevated pathway from the Ratchaprasong intersection to the Platinum Mall in Pratunam.

 

Platinum Group president Somboon Wongrassamee said it had been entrusted by the Crown Property Bureau to lease its land situated adjacent to the Big C Rajdamri hypermarket to develop the 13-storey Market by Platinum project, which will cover an area of 226,500 square metres and house more than 3,000 shops.

 

The Market by Platinum will have no shops selling brand-name products, and will instead be a market for small Thai retailers to show their craftsmanship, similar to the merchants at the famous Chatuchak weekend market, he said.

 

It will also feature well-known restaurants from across the country, he added.

 

Erawan president Kamonwan Wipulakorn said the group, which had completed the Bt400-million renovation of its shopping complex at the end of last year, would complete the 30-storey, 63,000-square-metre Gaysorn Tower 2 in 2017.

 

Meanwhile, Minor Group's vice president for strategy and investors relations, Chaiyapat Paitoon, said the group planned to invest more than Bt600 million to renovate its Four Season Hotel and rebrand it under the umbrella of its flagship Anantara brand from March 1.

 

Chai said Chinese tourists were among the main targets in terms of increasing the overall number of foreign visitors to the area in the next three years, but it would be "guesswork" to say how many of the targeted 64 million additional visitors would come from the Chinese market.

 

The Ratchaprasong developers' announcement yesterday came after the Mall Group, Thailand's second-largest shopping-mall developer, unveiled a Bt50-billion plan late last year to invest in six new mall projects, on Bangkok's Sukhumvit Road, and in Hua Hin and Phuket.

 

Asked about the massive investments in Thailand's retail sector, Central's Isareit said he was not too concerned about the risk of oversupply of retail investment in the Ratchaprasong area.

 

"Look at Hong Kong. They have many CBDs [central business districts] even though they have a small population, and [they have many] tourists as well," he said.