Construction is 30% complete at Mall of Qatar, a 162,000 square meter shopping Centre, which is due to open seven years ahead of the football tournament.
“The excavation is fully finished and we’re now onto building the structural frame,” said Shem Krey, deputy managing director for Mall of Qatar.
“If you drive down the highway from a good number of miles out you can see it projecting into the skyline in front of the stadium. It’s coming and it will be here in September 2015.”
“We’re looking at a combination of branding that works with the fashion retail of the luxury area and we’re looking at combining fashion shows with events that are around the fashion industry,” said Krey. The operator of the hotel will be announced soon, he added.
The mall, which is expected to cost QR3 billion ($820 million) to build, will feature 400 shops, of which between 50 to 75 of them will be luxury boutiques.
The mall has yet to sign any tenants, but it is in discussion with between six to eight retailers which are vying for between four and five major anchor locations in the mall that make up approximately 40 per cent of the available space.
It is clear that retailers see a need for a mall in Doha which brings together “international standards of a shopping center,” said Krey.
“We constantly use The Dubai Mall as an example of the quality of finishes or quality of excellence and quality of best management and we feel that it is a very good example and standard to go for and we would like to offer the Doha market and we will be offering to the Doha market that similar, if not better, standard in this area,” he said.
“That is really our key objective and we hope to do better than that.”
The National
9 October
