Mirdif City Centre, the flagship project of Majid Al Futtaim Group (MAF), has officially handed over its first retail unit to tenants for design and building work.

Carrefour Hypermarket is the first of 430 world class retailers to prepare for the City Centre opening early next year, said a company official.

Over the next one month, 120 of the super regional mall’s tenants will have the opportunity to start fitting out their units in keeping with Mirdif City Centre’s unique community experience which is as much about lifestyle as it is about shopping, pointed out Shahram Shamsaee, senior vice-president, shopping malls at MAF.

The tenants will be given ‘beneficial access’ to work with the mall’s retail design and delivery team, who identify how to meet the trading tenancy deadlines, with the right look and the basic retail principals.

It is vital that the outlets’ designs match the goals of the architectural and interior design of the mall itself, he noted.

Mirdif City Centre has been built with the community at its heart. It will offer dedicated community areas, medical clinics, spa, personal grooming facilities, fitness centre and over 20,000 sq m of unique leisure concepts including a special children’s ‘edutainment’ centre, an indoor ‘I-Fly’ sky diving experience, a 12 lane bowling alley, a soccer circus, aqua play area for younger children and a 10 screen state-of-the-art multiplex cinema.

Shamsaee said that the retail design managers’ relationship with the retailers plays a large part in establishing Mirdif City Centre as a ‘community within a community’.

"The key for us is to have that bond with the retailers and their contractors, with a forum for feedback, then improvement. At the same time, our valued experience in past years on mall developments, has given us the platform to be more efficient," he noted.

"We are constantly looking to improve ways to be ‘on time’ and ‘looking good’,” he added.

The fit out periods range from 60 to 270 days, depending on the size of the unit and the services that are offered.

“The tenancies range from large anchor retailers to small service retailers, from fashion to cafés or full sized restaurants, with a hundred plus covers. The brief is extremely diverse,” Shamsaee added.

At 196,000 sq m, Mirdif City Centre will be one of the largest shopping centres in the Majid Al Futtaim portfolio, approximately the same size as Majid Al Futtaim’s Mall of the Emirates.-TradeArabia News Service