Thursday, November 6, 2008

Shopping blues

Have been wanting to check out a new landmark in Kota Kinabalu but was not able to do so until today. That landmark is KK Times Square. It was opened not too long ago, though it has been completed for many months now. The architecture is not too shabby, and the whole place has a kind of regal feel to it but one thing that it clearly lacks is the one thing that makes such places come alive - tenants. During our short tour of the place, it seems that the entire place has just eight! And there are hundreds of lots!

Probably it has something to do with the accessibility to the place (you can only get there from one side of the road. You'd have to make a u-turn if you're coming the other way. And the u-turn is a long way off), but I think it has more to do with the glut in the commercial buildings here. KK is booming, no doubt. Shopping complexes are being built left, right and centre, but more often than not, a lot of the shoplots in these complexes are empty. You see, Kota Kinabalu is a small city and there are only so many people who can visit these places at any one time. Already, we have a few examples of these - even shopping complexes right within the city perimeter.

Yet, still more shopping complexes are coming up. There are at least 4 more big projects in progress that I know of within a 20km radius of Kota Kinabalu. So, I wonder - where are the shop owners going to find their customers?

6 comments:

Nick Phillips (15/03/1967 - 04/11/2022) said...

The times are bad and getting worse and soon, I'm sure I'll see a lot of shops closing down over here ...

Mas Light said...

believe it or not, I owez wanted to go there but don't seem to have time to yet @_@"""

Perry R. Lim said...

Nick: Yeah...times are bad. The prices are still not dropping!

Perry R. Lim said...

maslight: Tiada juga mau tingu sana...unless you like looking at empty shop lots la.

Anonymous said...

scary...the signs of bad times

carolchs said...

Just went looking around there last night. Only the Korean BBQ shop saja yg i think got people..the TWO other shops that were still operating, kusung saja.

 
ss_blog_claim=e22bcb184b7f0fc3f06d15b2b7f7110c