Shops at new Hong Kong border mall will have rent waived after ‘unsatisfactory’ opening weekend
Fees will be waived for as long as two months after traders say outlet-style shopping centre saw only a handful of shoppers on first day of business
The operator of a border shopping centre is forgoing rents for as long as two months in a desperate bid to keep the project afloat, two days after the outlet-style mall opened.
Shops already operating at The Boxes in San Tin and prospective tenants moving in between now and March will have their monthly rents waived and will only need to pay a management fee of HK$14 per square foot, according to legislator Wong Ting-kwong, who is behind the project.
Wong admitted the public response on the first day of business on Saturday was “not satisfactory” but said it was much better on Sunday.
Only a score of shops opened for business on Saturday, reportedly attracting only some 100 local shoppers by early afternoon. Some shopkeepers complained about poor turnover, about HK$1,000 for the day, while some shoppers complained that the mall was “deserted” as too few shops had opened.
But Wong said on Monday: “It has been picking up quickly [on Sunday and Monday] after we arranged a shuttle bus service to ferry shoppers from the border to our mall.”
He said he heard from some shopkeepers that their business had soared more than tenfold, and there had been many more shoppers browsing around.