Lulu Group, the UAE-based conglomerate, operates shopping malls in Kochi, Trivandrum, Thrissur, Bengaluru and Lucknow
UAE-based retail giant, Lulu Group, may set up a shopping mall or hypermarket in Mumbai for which it is currently scouting for a land parcel.
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“We will come up with a mall or hypermarket depending on the land availability,” Shibu Philips, Director Malls, Lulu Shopping Malls told HT.com on the sidelines of the retail conference Mapic India 2024 in Mumbai.
“I can say that we are coming to Mumbai and the land team is looking for land that will suit our requirements. We may come up with a mall or a hypermarket, it will also depend on the type of land we get,” said Philips.
Apart from Mumbai, the company also has plans for Delhi-NCR and Uttar Pradesh. “For our development in Noida, talks are currently ongoing for the land,” Philips added.
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The company had in 2022 announced investments of over ₹19,000 crore in India for malls, hypermarkets, and its other businesses in India in the next four years totalling to around 5 million sq ft of development, including in cities such as Gurugram and Noida, Calicut, Tirur, Perinthalmanna, Kottayam, Palakkad in Kerala and Varanasi, Prayagraj, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai.
The Lulu Group has operations in countries like UAE, India, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The company operates 260 LuLu stores and 24 shopping malls across the GCC, Egypt, India, and the Far East.
In India, the company has operational malls at Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, Bengaluru and Lucknow.
Mixed use development for India
Speaking at a panel discussion at Mapic India 2024, Philips said that the company wants to do mixed used development in India.
“Traditional retail beyond shopping, we also want to connect with people. We plan to develop big spaces for large- scale entertainment keeping in mind factors like sustainability and adaptability,” Philips said.
A mixed-use development refers to an ecosystem developed by realtors that comprises a residential building, a commercial office space, a mall and hotel as one big project.
Indoor amusement centres in malls
The Indian real estate market currently has approximately 6.6 million square feet of operational indoor amusement centers space spread across more than 500 centers. Almost one-fifth of these facilities occupy larger than 50,000 sq ft retail space, according to a report released by JLL, a real estate consultancy firm on September 18.
