A new luxury mall in Kowloon West will open early next month with the aim of attracting 100,000 high-spending visitors and tourists daily. The mall, Elements, a flagship retail property of the MTR Corporation, is located beside the new International Commerce Centre and surrounded by luxury flats. The MTR Corp's chief retail development manager, Betty Leong Sin-ling, estimated at least 100,000 people would visit the mall every day. 'There are actually a lot of people with high incomes living in Kowloon, and there are very limited luxury brand name stores in the area. 'There has been a boom in tourists from the mainland since 1998, so Tsim Sha Tsui is packed [with tourists],' she said. 'The demand is higher than what can be supplied. 'Therefore we think the Kowloon district can afford to have one new mall to cater for tourists and local customers.' With a few hundred thousand people living along the Tung Chung line, and the homes and offices near the mall, Ms Leong said it was hoped that in two to three years, 180,000 people would visit the mall each day. She said there would also be various ways to help shoppers commute to the mall. 'We have the West Rail line to facilitate visitors who live in New Territories West, and there will be a regional express train to provide access to Guangzhou. 'We will encourage visitors to take our rail lines and shuttle buses, and we will have 1,700 car parking spaces available.' she said. '[The car parks] are very important to high-end malls.' She said a shuttle bus service from Kowloon Station to Shenzhen airport would be added later to serve frequent fliers, with passengers being charged for the trip. Elements will cover a million square feet and its two floors will be the biggest individual retail floors in Hong Kong. Phase I, opening next month, will account for 90 per cent of the overall project area. The mall will have ambassadors to provide shopping advice and help customers, and there will also be nine 'six-star service washrooms' for shoppers, with four on the first floor and five on the second. Free magazines and drinks will be provided in the lounges outside the washrooms, where brand name perfumes, cologne and aftershave will also be available for customers. Ms Leong said the developers had spent millions building the washrooms and the facilities would cost up to HK$400,000 a month just to maintain.
