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ASIA AFTER THE FLU

The economic crisis of the late ’90s has forced shopping center developers to adapt

By Susan Thorne

Although Asia’s economic crisis forced Rockwell Land to scale back its plans for Power Plant Mall in Manila, the company says the center is doing well since its opening last year.

It was envisioned as a trophy mall, a landmark historic conversion project and a shopping destination that would attract new international retail players to the Philippines.

Called Power Plant, the Rockwell Land Corp.’s prestigious shopping center in Manila, conceived in 1995 at the height of Asia’s economic boom, was planned as 50,000 square meters (538,200 square feet) of retail in the renovated structure of a former power plant, with a dramatic open-concept using exposed steel beams and floor-to-ceiling glass storefronts.

But that was before the notorious “Asian Flu,” the financial and economic upheaval that rolled through Southeast Asia following devaluation of the Thai baht (the national currency) in 1997. Power Plant is just one of many elaborate projects that developers across Southeast Asia have had to rethink in the wake of the crisis, which saw a sudden drop in property values, followed by depressed customer spending, retail store closings and a massive loss of investor confidence in retail projects.

“Development simply ceased, like turning off the tap,” said Colin Stephens, chairman of Design International, Toronto, architectural and planning consultants for Power Plant. With the peso plunging by around 40%, planning abruptly stopped on the project in 1998, even though drawings and construction documents had already been prepared with a 1999 completion in mind, and Design International started from scratch with a new, much leaner concept.

They were not alone. The majority of shopping center owners and developers are using a variety of strategies to cope with the new economic circumstances; they are canceling or slowing work on upcoming projects, reconfiguring or downsizing existing centers, and changing mall design features and the tenant mix.

Power Plant, a four-level shopping galleria, today is totally different from the original vision. Plans to restore the old power plant building were scrapped, and it was demolished. In its place, developers drew up a new, more frugal, concept: They used plaster and forms instead of exposed steel, and substituted local building materials for imported ones where possible. They adjusted the tenant mix, too, with leasing efforts focused on local and Asian retailers rather than foreign operators; the original fashion merchandising focus was replaced by more casual, trendy lifestyle retailers and cafe dining. To mask the compromises, Design International held the line on overall center size and distinctive features, such as Italian tile flooring, underground parking and street landscaping, succeeding in setting the center apart from other Manila malls.

Developers all over the region have taken similar measures, and controlling construction and decor costs have been at the forefront of their efforts. Asian developers have traditionally imported many shopping center components such as steel beams, air-conditioning units and glass from North America or other Western countries; Stephens estimates that around 30% of costs for shopping center projects were paid in U.S. dollars before the crisis. But the cost of imports skyrocketed after the Asian currency devaluations, resulting in the much more extensive use of local construction materials.

Developers are also saving money on interior decoration and design. Stan Laegreid, principal with Callison Architects, Seattle, said his company can generate savings by simplifying the major surfaces of a center — using less costly wall surface materials, for instance — and putting more emphasis on accents, “like accessorizing a black dress with jewelry.” An example of this “environmental graphics” approach can be seen at Maju Perdana, a 450,000-square-foot shopping center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Callison used large, dramatic signage and prominent entry features for a cost-effective design theme.

The crisis also has affected the retail mix and price point in centers, in response to lower customer spending levels since 1997. The Flu polarized the Asian shopping mix, Laegreid explained: Most midprice customers have traded down to a lower price point, while a small, affluent percentage of the population continues to buy premium-priced merchandise. Successful centers are adjusting to this new demographic. U2 Zone in Seoul, Korea, for example, started as a boutique-oriented mall with international brands and a high-fashion component, but has recently added a high number of domestic value vendors and stores, Laegreid said. One mall that has capitalized on both extremes of the market is the Wisma Atria Shopping Complex in Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping district, which is effectively two distinct shopping destinations — an upper-end one on the two top floors, with designer fashions and premium prices, and two floors of value and junior-oriented retail on the lower levels near the subway.

But the crisis has left many Western retailers reluctant to enter the region, so that local or regional retailers and existing foreign franchisors are now the backbone of the merchandise mix.

North American participation in the food-service sector is still strong, however. Moreover, the withdrawal from Southeast Asia of Japanese department stores such as Sogo, Tokyu and Daimaru has left room for Carrefour, Wal-Mart and other international hypermarkets to play a larger role in shopping centers.

“We’re seeing virtually every retail project with a hypermarket included,” Laegreid observed.

Nevertheless, many centers face a substantial oversupply of retail space in their markets — overbuilding was endemic in Southeast Asia in the 1990s — and must find alternative uses for their store premises.

“If you’re traveling through Bangkok today, you still see it in terms of empty [retail] buildings,” said Geoffrey Cresswell, managing director of MMC International Architects, Toronto, who works extensively in Thailand. Demalling or downsizing centers — even operating with half or less of the mall open for business — are two common solutions for Asian owners, he said. In other cases, mall owners might divide vacant retail units into smaller ones with lower rents in order to attract independent retailers as tenants. However, attempts to modify mall space or individual stores are often complicated by the fact that Asian mall premises are most commonly sold rather than rented.

Depending on mall layout and design, conversion to mixed-use may be possible. With a typical Asian multilevel shopping center — six to seven floors of retail tied to office towers — one or two of the retail floors might be rented to office tenants such as travel agencies or small insurance firms, Cresswell said. A focused use approach is another possibility. The 90,000-square-foot gross leasable area Seri Center in Bangkok has bounced back from difficult times that included the loss of anchor Au Printemps by redefining itself as a specialty center for computer and software retailers.

In the intense competition for tenants and customers, many owners are coming to appreciate the importance of good management, Cresswell observed.

“They’re starting to see the advantages of promoting your shopping center, of having big events to attract customers — something many of them didn’t think you needed to do before,” he said. Issues such as energy efficiency are being considered more carefully, and owners are coming to see that leasing is a better arrangement than selling stores, because they can maintain better control over center quality and tenant mix. If it continues, that attention to good management could be the silver lining in the dark cloud of Asia’s financial troubles.

The radical changes seem to have worked for Power Plant, which is largely occupied and doing well since its opening last year, its developers say.

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