Lotte Mart expansion plan ousts Mipec Tower tenants

Lotte Mart expansion plan ousts Mipec Tower tenants

Lotte Mart will develop Hanoi’s Mipec Tower shopping centre into a mega-supermarket.

This information was revealed to VIR last week by Vo Thi Thu Hang, marketing supervisor from Lotte Viet Nam Shopping Co., Ltd, which recently acquired 20,000 square metres of the shopping mall from Mipec.

“After being inaugurated late this year, the mega-supermarket, which used to be shopping centre, will operate on a similar basis to Big C or Coopmart,” said Hang.

According to Hang, Lotte will use 40 to 60 per cent of the total retail space for its business, with the remaining area put up for rent. “Lotte wants to build a new retail model with an abundance of goods at affordable prices where consumers can enjoy a shopping experience with a range of entertainment and relaxing services such as cinema, arcade, coffee shops, fast food outlets and restaurants,” added Hang.

Hang said the economic downturn had kept customers from renting space in not only Mipec Tower, but many other shopping centres in Hanoi. However, Lotte’s selection of Mipec Tower for its mega-supermarket was in line with its long-term business strategy.

“Lotte decided to lease four of Mipec Tower’s five floors due to many factors, including its ideal location,” Hang said.

Current lease-holders at Mipec Tower are scheduled to leave as the new Lotte Mart lease takes effect.

Pham Thi Hong, a saleswoman at the Alome shop said that shop owners had been told to leave the tower by late June, but were then provided with a one-month rental payment exemption, in order for them to clear their stock.

“Mipec agreed to lease four of its floors to Lotte, even though these floors had already been leased to other shops. Mipec’s decision has obviously affected our business,” added Hong.

A saleswoman from Thailand’s Sunny jewellery shop said that she still wanted to continue at Mipec Tower and would wait until Lotte’s new mall opened for business. “I think that the new owner [of the mall] will need shop owners like me since 90 per cent of previous shop owners would have moved to Vincom Mega Mall Royal City by the end of this month,” she added.

Nguyen Van Linh, a salesman at Malaysia’s Noir shoe store said the shop had already decided to move to Vincom Mega Mall Royal City.

Some shop owners at the tower said Mipec had failed to promote the shopping centre’s image and had made it difficult for them to increase sales. They also speculated that Mipec’s lack of effort was due to the fact that Mipec had already wanted to lease the mall to Lotte.

Mipec failed to reply to VIR requests for a comment.

Meanwhile, Hang from Lotte said that Lotte only co-operated with Mipec and refused to further comment on the problem.

vir