And now Muthaiga square next to mathare hospital WOW..real estate will one day go burst !!!!

Is there engough reseacrh supporting all thse mushrooming malls ?

Surely with this boom of construction soon a particular niche will be oversupplied. like a certain price range of residential houses. Malls will do well but only the best of the best will thrive

Has anyone been to the expansive watermark business park near Karen hospital. It opened mid last year and one year down the road what i see when i go there is about 30-40% occupancy

I think some of the investors are suffering

i cannot imagine what it would be like to be paying loans when you have 30% of the expected tenants . Not to mention that you may be forced to charge lower than intially budgeted to get better occupancy

What will happen with time is that most of these malls will become markets/shopping centers/stalls like etc. The rents will be drastically reduced, the shop spaces will be occupied by kawaida businesses - Njung'e African Dishes, Makerenge wines and Spirits, Swenani Fish Inc., Wamunyota General Merchants (Transport, Plumbing, Photocopy, Cyber Cafe, Plots for Sale, Houses to Let, House girls to and from Dubai, Chai loko, Auctioneer, etc.). And life will go on. For tenants and customers!! For landlords/mall owners especially the ones buying the land at inflated prices, watalilia kwa choo!!! Some Malls of course will survive and will continue housing luxury stores and charging premium rent.

On a lighter note, the name "Mall" should be controlled! Every Tom, Dick and Mary (1/3 gender requirement) are calling whatever kind of building they come up with a mall. If there are shops, it is a mall!! I saw one next to the Weighbridge on your way to Thika calling itself Adva Mall or something like that! I was like "Seriously???".

By the way @dunkang for most mixed developments, the residential section is not part of the other sections per se. It is fenced off and access is through a manned gate. You don't go to the mall and all over sudden you have access to all sections including the residences! That would be a security nightmare.

I don't know how Garden Estate have done their design/plan but it would be stupid to have no controlled access to the residential area!

In theory, it is very simple to sort out the issue. You can buy a coupon at the entrance, say worth 300/= (or whatever amount) for you to gain entrance. This coupon would then be redeemable at all stalls. When you buy stuff, you pay using the coupon and add the difference in cash. The coupon should expire the same day. But that is in theory!!!

1) They are not the only mall. competition is very high.

2) The target customers might also not like the "inconvenience".

3) Once in a while even the "high worth" customers might just be passing buy to pick something small like painkillers and they would feel they are being robbed or forced to buy other things.

4) Some tenants - especially supermarkets - might complain because they will feel you are locking out potential customers.

5) There is no precedence! Even the fancy malls in the US and Dubai don't charge an entrance fee.

Mobil plaza now Oillibya plaza is probably the best place to go if you are not the showy kind, it is only recently that some guys saw it after the tress were cut for thika road, Mature crowd mostly wenye inchi wa Muthaiga

well said

its only at mobil plaza that you find a tusker can 500ml at Ksh 120.

@food plus/chandarana

mainly rich muthaiga housewives shop there.

And where are the shoppers supposed to come from? At least hiyo nasikia foxrivers iko next to rich neighborhood.These guys would have built a large discount store/supermarket with prices less than any other supermarket and they would have done an Equity in this sector. People from as far as Ruiru would have done their shopping there.Now they only have guys from Thome and garden but judging by their old pickups which pick barley waste from EABL, they might not be people who will spend in that mall.