Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    A LARGE shopping mall in Shenzhen’s Meilin area will open for business Aug. 26. The mall hopes to become a landmark in the emerging business district in northern Futian District.

    Businesses including H&M, Uniqlo, Orange Sky Golden Harvest Cinemas, and Starbucks have signed contracts with the developer, Shenzhen’s Excellence Group, to open outlets in the eight-story INJOY Mall.

    The brands will take up 97 percent of the mall, which occupies more than 100,000 square meters in a commercial and office complex built by the Excellence Group, according to Zeng Xiaohua, deputy general manager of the INJOY project under the group.

    “We hired a consultancy company which conducted a survey and found that the area within 3 kilometers of the shopping mall receives 1 million visitors every day, including 400,000 residents, 100,000 office workers and 500,000 visitors brought by nearby Metro lines,” said Zeng.

    The mall will have a kids area.

    “We sacrificed rental income to leave more space for kids and we hope the area, along with the restaurants, will help retain customer loyalty,” said Pang Chundong, general manager of the INJOY project.

    Zhao Haijun, senior vice president of Orange Sky Golden Harvest Cinemas, said his company was among the first to sign a contract to enter the shopping mall and will open one of largest IMAX cinemas in the city. “We see the determination of Excellence Group to build the INJOY brand,” said Zhao. “They invested heavily and are very confident with it. That’s why we chose to establish an outlet there to better serve our customers.”

    INJOY is the second commercial property brand Excellence has developed after INTOWN, which has a presence in the Futian CBD area.

    INJOY was founded in Shenzhen in 2013. It has locations in Qingdao, Shandong, and in Shanghai. An INJOY is also being built in Guangzhou.

    Excellence Group, which ranks 48th among property developers in China according to research firm China Real Estate Information Corp., is the dominant commercial developer in the Futian CBD. The group paid 12.37 billion yuan (US$2 billion) for two commercial sites in Qianhai in 2013 in the economic zone’s first land auction.

    The Futian District Government said it will expand its central business district to encourage further development, with Meilin designated as an area for e-commerce. Meilin may become the next business center in Futian.

    Meilin plans to develop 25 commercial sites with a total area of more than 2 million square meters, almost half the size of Futian’s CBD.

    At the intersection of Metro lines 4 and 9, INJOY Mall will be the fifth shopping center in Futian. The other four, all located in the Futian CBD area, are very close to each other. Industry insiders have complained that Futian doesn’t have a landmark shopping mall like The MixC even though it replaced Luohu as the city center over 10 years ago.