Source: New Express Daily, Jan. 16, 2005
At 11:38 a.m. yesterday, with the emergence of a huge-size musical spring fountain and the rumble from 2 eruptive towers on the square, Grandview Mall, which is known as “the first multi-functional shopping mall in Asia”, locating in Tianhe District right on the axis of Guangzhou, eventually revealed itself in front of the long-waited public.
Guangzhou citizens were so curious about such a “No. 1 Mall of Asia” that they couldn’t inhibit the urge to go and have a look despite the fact that the Red Chillness Alarm was just cleared 2 hours ago. According to the undercount, from noon 12:00 up to evening, 200,000 people had been recorded in.
Crowds of Bystanders
The initial business area of Grandview Mall is 70,000 ?, accommodating the largest stores of more than 100 brands. Only a small part of the total business area though, the magnificent outlook and the avant-garde concept we can see are stunning enough to attract innumerous visitors.
Not yet 9 o’clock in the morning far before the start of the Open Ceremony, there were already crowds of bystanders at the blockade. In the great din of gongs and drums, watching the vigorous dragon dancing, people were all expecting to go inside the Mall and have a good look around. And on the North Square of the Mall, sets of spring fountains, arrays of novel windmills and colorful cartoon sculptures were also focuses of the citizens’.
Around 11:00 a.m. just when the Grand Open Ceremony finished, while the platform had scarcely been removed, people lost no time to flow in. A good number of the visitors were lovers, spouses, and even some whole families.
Over-walking Strollers
As soon as you enter the Mall, the great view of a 220? space impresses you ---- what a huge scale! The construction area of Grandview, consisting of 2 and a half stories underground and 7 stories on the ground, amounts to 300,000 ?, with abundant supporting services for leisure taking. Actually only 52% of the total area are used for shopping business, the rest are all for recreation and caterings, with more than 10,000 ? for an amusement center, 1000 ? for a Genuine Ice Skating Rink, and 10 cinemas. Besides, a lot of outdoor amusement facilities have been moved indoors, e.g., the surfing game. In addition, the catering area within the Grandview Mall are reaching 30,000 ?.
Ms. Lam who was living in the neighborhood of Grandview told the journalist that she had long heard about the big fame of Grandview Mall, and it could be another good place for shopping and fun from then on. She said, “It’s really dignified, but just walking around could make me exhausted. Hopefully there would be more public chairs for the visitors to take a rest later.”
In regard to this, Mr. Xie Shi-Ping, GM of the Grandview Mall, said that many devices and services in Grandview Mall were human-based, for instances, the Nursing Room for moms and babies, and the Electric Trolleys for customers to take a ride. As per Mr. Xie, there would also be some security guards riding horses on patrols. No wonder the State Tourist Bureau is intended to authorize Grandview Mall as the first Commercial & Traveling demonstration project of our country.
Shoveling Up Big Bucks In The First Day
As part of the stores in the Mall opened yesterday, most of visitors were more interested in sight-seeing than in shopping. At the atrium the spring fountain which sprung out jets of water reaching 20 meters high and those palm trees that higher than 10 meters intrigued plenty of bystanders, and lots of people lined up in queues to try on the sight-seeing elevators which could rise up to the top of the building. To keep the order, owner of the Mall had arranged many security guards to stand on site yesterday.
We walked around and found some stores within the Mall not yet open despite the flagship shops of Friendship Store, ParknShop and Watson’s were cheerfully embracing consumers. And according to Mr. Fang Xiang-Qian, Board Chairman of Friendship Store Grandview Branch, their sales yesterday were bound to be over RMB 3,000,000, while Mr. Zeng Zhi-wei, manager of JI-HOU-FENG Discount Store, the Store’s sales could be around RMB 300,000 from yesterday afternoon to evening.
More Stores Will Be Open Before The Spring Festival
It is said that those stores that not yet open at present were in their intense preparations and estimated to open around the Spring Festival. While it will be until the eve of Spring Festival at the soonest for the recreation and leisure spots in the Mall to be finished, the cinema and Surfing Game District, too, will be ready only around March this year, but the FEI-YANG Cinema had put up an eye-catching slogan for publicity yesterday. Says were 80% of the total area of Grandview Mall would be in business before the Spring Festival.
When all the stores of the Mall are open, 92 Traveling Staircases, 14 Vertical Lifts and 7 Sight-seeing elevators will be in use altogether, in time about 100,000 national and international brands will be running here, 40,000 consumers could be accommodated at the same time, and the estimated average pedestrian amount per day could be over 800,000 at pinnacle.
PLUS: A seminar named “Commercial Distribution VS International Competing Force”, which was sponsored by the Development Study Center of the State Council and GuangZhou Government, was ceremoniously held within Grandview Mall yesterday.
