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Venezuelan vision

Centro Sambil’s developers seek to change the way country shops

By Debra Hazel

If a developer tried, he couldn't make a mall site more difficult to develop than Centro Sambil's location in Caracas, Venezuela.

The 775,000-square-foot center is located in a valley, in downtown, literally next to an active private airport.

So it isn't all that surprising that the Cohen family, the founders of The Sambil Group, took seven years to develop the mall, which finally opened in May 1998. Since then, it is changing the way Caraqueños shop.

"Our main goal when we built Sambil was not to incur the problems of other Venezuelan malls," said Alfredo Cohen Kohn, who spearheaded the development. Among the major problems to solve: creating a shopping and entertainment complex; and keeping stores open through the day and well into the evening.

Working with Caracas-based architect David Gabay Levy, New York City-based design firm Grid 3 International created a concrete-and-wood structure to accommodate its unusual downtown site.

"Caracas is a city in a number of valleys. The city literally goes up the sides of mountain, and the center of the city is in the middle of the valley," said Keith Kovar, executive vice president of Grid 3.

The mall is located near a freeway in the heart of an affluent area. The site had been the only large plot of land left in the area and had originally been slated for an IBM facility.

"The land slopes away from the main street, and across the freeway is an airport. So there is an imaginary line you can't build above," to accommodate the slope of landing aircraft, Kovar said. "You can stand on the roof of the shopping center, and the planes are coming in a couple of hundred feet above your head. So [the site] was interesting: a sloping site and a sloping line in the sky."

The unique location dictated a multilevel center, but one in which not all levels could run all the way across the length of the property. In addition, the floor plan had to be relatively simple, so it could be translated from floor to floor.

"The best approach became a straight mall,then a semicircular mall connected to it," Kovar said.

The mall is a series of round courts, interconnected with walkways constructed of poured concrete manufactured in on-site foundries. To accommodate the slope, each level gets progressively smaller as shoppers move upward.

Glass is a critical element in the design: Skylights over every interior court and one glass wall bring natural light into every courtyard in the mall.

"This was the first enclosed shopping center built in Venezuela in 20 years. Because of the enclosed nature of the mall, we wanted to get glass in. In the 1960s and 1970s, natural light was a bad thing; that, obviously, has changed completely," Kovar said.

Flooring throughout the center is a richly colored terrazzo embedded with a circular design.

"We used reds, yellows, grays and blues in lots of patterns. The effect is somewhat subdued so it doesn't overwhelm," Kovar said. "It's the least expensive floor to put down, because labor is less expensive there."

Vertical transportation was critical. The center has 58 escalators and 11 glass-encased elevators. Yet there was a glitch in the transport early on.

"When the center opened, none of the escalators were working. The developers had underestimated the traffic by 100%, and the escalators had to be adjusted for the heavier loads. The elevators had some pretty long lines," Kovar said.

Another concern for the architects was earthquake-proofing the center, which was achieved by constructing cantilevered supports for 17 interlocking buildings, creating one unified structure.

Three levels of parking, accommodating 4,000 cars, sit below the mall's five retail floors. Centro Sambil's 550 stores are divided by level.

"The Autopista has record stores, that kind of thing, while La Libertador has quite a bit of fashion. The Feria has the food court and higher-end fashion," Kovar said.

Nonretail tenants include a 2,000-person ban quet facility, bowling alley, salt-water aquarium, rooftop amusement park and 550-seat amphitheater, and 12 movie screens.

Even more interesting is what the center doesn't have.

"What is impressive is that they don't have anchor stores. All of the tenants are different and very unique. You can find brands from the States or from Europe, such as Zara," said Arturo Aguilar, international sales manager for Amarillo, Texas-based Waggon-Cellers. The firm manufactures the kiosks and carts used at Sambil.

Sambil's specialty tenants are a mix of local, European and U.S. merchants, including Joan & David, Haagen-Dazs, RadioShack, Tommy Hilfiger, DKNY, Loewe and Levi's.

There is now a need for such tenants: The post-World War II discovery of oil reserves in the nation helped create an upper and middle class that continues to grow. Previously, the well-to-do among Caracas' 4 million residents had to fly to Miami (about two hours away) to shop more upscale tenants.

The reason the mall is anchorless, Kovar explained, is that Venezuela lacks local department stores.

"There are a couple of large retailers, but they tend to be lower-end, and the Cohens wanted this to be a high-end center: They wanted to give high-end shoppers an option to buy that kind of merchandise without leaving the country to do it," Kovar said.

In addition, said Marcelo Albertal, vice president of Grid 3, the initial design for the center was done at a time U.S. department stores were struggling. "Though our center has big stores, it was designed not to need it."

In a break from the traditional condominium-style leasing of Latin American centers, under which tenants purchase their spaces from the developer, Centro Sambil is leased in the U.S. style.

"[The Cohens] had intended to sell the spaces. We started talking to them about leasing [instead]. There was a recession on, and they started leasing another project. They realized that they had some control over the center," Kovar said. About 15% of Centro Sambil's tenants do own their spaces, however.

In addition, Grid 3 developed and implemented strict tenant criteria to ensure an attractive series of storefronts. The Sambil management handled all leasing, but Grid 3 was retained to help tenants create more attractive stores.

"We kept hearing that other centers let people do what they wanted with signage, and it looked pretty bad. But we put together criteria that said, 'Here's the lease line. Stay behind it,'" Kovar said.

That meant substantial education for retailers more accustomed to streetfront locations.

"A pharmacy wanted to enclose its whole front like it was on the street," Albertal recalled. "The good thing is that the mall administration and owners gave us 110% support. They wanted to change the whole idea of retail."

The center is open until 10 p.m. on Sundays, a novelty in the city. And the project has had an effect on retail throughout the region.

"It was a challenge to have specialty leasing accepted. The idea is that temporary tenants are unfair to the in-line stores," Aguilar explained.

"Now that they've been shown to work, specialty leasing is very popular there."

Perhaps most gratifying was the degree of cooperation between the Grid 3 team and the Sambil team.

"Keith and I did the project together, and the communication between us and them was perfect," Albertal said.

Early regular communication was the key, according to Kohn.

"We discussed the project at least once a week for three months until we reached a point of perfect balance for both sides. They respected our ideas and worries, and we were able to make use of every single space both inside the mall and out," Kohn said.

Nearly perfect is the final result. Centro Sambil has become the dominant center in Caracas. Sales average close to $750 per square foot,with fast-food vendors averaging close to $1,800 per square foot, Kohn reported.

"[This is] an incredible figure compared to other malls in Venezuela and abroad," he said.

Clearly, the Cohens' goals have been met.

"It's a point where people meet not just to shop," Aguilar said, "but to eat and be entertained."