Eastside Story: a new Hanoi grows across the Red River

Eastside Story: a new Hanoi grows across the Red River

The arrival of Japan’s leading retail developer, Aeon, with a $200 million retail centre in Long Bien district will be a fresh example of the emergence of eastern Hanoi across the Red River.

Aeon will start construction of its first project in Hanoi within the next few months to meet the increasing consumer demand of the area.

Aeon is a prominent player among many developers eyeing the potential of Hanoi’s emerging east side. Several other residential and retail developers like Vincom have developed projects, broken ground or laid out plans for the development of the area.

Fast development of new infrastructures together with the increasing number of residential and multi complex projects in the eastern Hanoi have attracted more people to move from high density central of Hanoi to the less crowded area with many modern commercial amenities.

Although Long Bien is a short drive to Hanoi’s central business district, for a long time it had not been on real estate developers’ radar screen. But now dozens of big scale residential projects are in development.

Hoang Hanh My, a resident in Viet Hung new urban complex, told VIR that she had moved to this area for more than two years, from the old style living quarters of inner Hanoi. “I like the environment and low density of population most. These issues I could not have in my old living quarterd in Trung Tu commune of Hanoi’s Dong Da district,” My said.

Moreover, she said the four current bridges over the Red River provided convenient and quick access to the city centre. In the future, she said, the planned Tu Lien and Long Bien 2 bridges would help improve access to the area as well.

The area and facilities, My said, were developing quickly and living standards continued to improve.

Real estate development in Long Bien has moved forward quickly in recent months with the openings of Savico Megamall and Vincom Centre, as well as other prime mixed-use developments such as the under-construction Mipec project next to Long Bien bridge.

Richard Leech, CBRE Vietnam executive director, said he believed that the infrastructure had developed well. Leech said the occupancy rate in Savico Megamall now was at a high level of around 95 per cent. Rents differ from floor to floor but he believed that shops were available at $25 per square metre per month.

In the first five months of the year, Leech said, the demand for the Big C hypermarket, food and beverage and entertainment in Savico Megamall has been strong. However the specialty stores have faired less well as consumers have tightened their belts.

Savico MegaMall and Vincom Centre Long Bien have ample parking facilities, which can satisfy families who visit the area from the inner Hanoi. In addition, tenant spaces are larger and cheaper per square meter, so customers can visit a greater variety of tenants on larger spaces.

However, economic woes are also impacting to the number of customers coming to Savico Megamall. Tran Thi Nga, a salesgirl of Ninomaxx shop in Savico Megamall, told VIR that her shop was only crowded at weekends and normally had very few customers as Vietnam’s economic woes had seen consumers tighten their belts.

Another salesgirl at Madison underwear shop with scores of leading domestic and foreign brands such as Vietnam’s Vera, Misaki, Wow and American’s Jokey, Jbuss or France’s Ell said that from the beginning of this year, though domestic brands reduced their price by 50 per cent and foreign brands by 30 per cent, the number of products sold was not many and shoppers were mostly women.

At Junger Germany, a kitchenware shop, sales clerk Nguyen Van Nam shared that his shop had not received many customers. “I hope that the situation will be better in the last six months of the year, when consumption can increase to meet the demand of people in traditional holidays and the festive seasons,” Nam said.

In order to lure more customers to Savico Megamall, Leech said the best way was continuously improving the overall tenant mix. “On top of that, a marketing campaign that attracts shoppers on a regular basis will also help lure tenants. Customers are looking for a good variety of shops in a convenient location. Savico Megamall should increase its food and beverage and entertainment offer to take advantage of the footfall already being generated by Big C,” Leech said.

As the urban infrastructure expands east of Hanoi, big developers are engaged in big projects such as Vincom Village, BVIS International School, Berjaya’s Hanoi Garden City, (Vihajico) Ecopark, and Viet Hung new urban area developed by Housing Urban Development Corporation.

vir