Our efforts to expand retail property market coverage to an additional nine cities in mainland China are now well underway. I recently travelled to Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, to inspect all of the major retail properties and determine which of them meet the standards to be included in our coverage. What we found is the centre, west, and southwest of the city are well-developed and pleasant, and there are good examples of high-quality, modern retail in the city. I’ll start with the national developers.
Baohe Wanda Plaza was the first Wanda property I have seen with a full selection of luxury brands with full sized stores. They were not just bridge brands, but included top tier brands like Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Dunhill. To separate them from the otherwise mid-market mall, Wanda put all of the high end brands into the Wanda Department Store. However, in contrast from most department stores, this Wanda Department Store consisted almost entirely of large stores and very few concession counters. Not all luxury Wandas are created equal though – a later trip to Changsha by our team showed that the luxury Wanda property there had not yet secured many tenants.
Yintai Centre in downtown Hefei was the first Yintai property outside of Beijing I have seen which makes a large departure from the traditional department store format. It has tasteful, spacious interiors with wide corridors, and an excellent selection of international brands on the lower floors. It comes very close to having the look and feel of a high-end shopping mall, and foreshadows what we might see in their upcoming project in northwest Hangzhou.
It seemed that BHG supermarkets, an upscale supermarket chain, and Watson’s drugstores were ubiquitous across Hefei in ways I hadn’t seen in other cities. In fact, the owner of BHG, Beijing Lianhua, developed two self-operated, BHG-anchored community malls in the city which were a nice template for what I consider a simple, successful community mall. Also, Fun Squared is a new mall concept being rolled out across the country by China Resources. The newly-opened Hefei property had a good selection of national brands and a high attention to detail on things like lifts and restrooms. However, it faces challenges of poor frontage as it is located on a small two-lane residential street.
Similar to what’s happening in Nanjing, I saw examples of local developers with impressive, newly-built shopping malls. Cosmo City (之心城) exceeded all expectations and had bustling crowds, high occupancy, and a great selection of branded merchandise during our visit there on a weeknight. Just-opened City Mall (新地中心) also showed promise, though it’s too early to tell how long it will take to stabilise, given its less mature surroundings. In all, the Hefei market exceeded expectations and appears to have enough good retail projects to satisfy demand for the next few years.
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