EVEN in what might have been considered their heyday of the 1990s and early 2000s, they never quite worked.
Located in prime commercial real estate on Nicosia’s Makarios Avenue, Cyprus’ first three experiments with European-style malls should have had the punters flocking, but the City Plaza, Galaxias Centre and Capital Centre never even began to approach the popularity of the Mall of Cyprus, on the outskirts of the capital and which opened in 2007.
The City Plaza and Capital Centre these days are almost completely deserted, apart from a few outlets on the ground floor. Above that shopping units galore stand empty. And some of the few that do remain are considering moving elsewhere. Glaxias, the first of the three centres to be completed in 1987, was also the first to give up the shopping mall ghost, by turning many of what had been retail spaces into offices.
City Plaza, completed by December 1989, is currently a sorry sight with none of its escalators operational and many of its stores up for rent, after having changed hands several times over the last 20 years. The third floor was once home to the ever popular Jumbo toy store, and probably the mall’s biggest draw in the early years. The toy outlet which used the whole floor left three years ago but its giant, colourful sign still stands on the third floor, inviting people in.
Andros Demosthenous, owner of Ergotaxio, a women’s clothing store on the ground floor of City Plaza and one of the few still there, is also preparing to move.
For Demosthenous, the high rent and common expenses is a major reason for his decision to take his business elsewhere. “I have to sell so much to cover the expenses,” he said.
According to one of City Plaza’s shareholders one of the reasons the mall failed was that it consisted of too many floors, a sentiment echoed by the developers of the other malls.
“Malls have also pushed people elsewhere as the store owners don’t have the best makes that they once did,” she said. “Right now we’re trying to turn the top floors into offices with very reasonable rent for the centre of town to attract young businessmen,” she added, mentioning the vast expanse of underground parking available.
Galaxias Centre was the first of its kind to be built along Makarios Avenue and completed by 1987. According to development director of CHAPO Chris Mattheou, the reasoning behind building such a centre seemed sound. Nicosia at that time did not have one place with everything under one roof, he said, explaining how the city’s first French restaurant was opened there on the first floor along with all the shops. The French restaurant later became Big Boy in the 1990s, a popular hangout for teenagers and then Heaven Lounge Café, which was also popular a few years ago. “When we were looking for a place to build we wanted somewhere with lots of parking close by and a place where people could go and spend hours in,” said Mattheou.
Mattheou believes one reason Galaxias failed to become a success was that all the owners were not under one management, or in his words: “where there are many roosters it becomes quite late before the day dawns.”
Another problem, and apparently common to all three, was that shoppers were reluctant to go up onto the first floor. Mattheou said that the shops on the ground floor were far more successful, with some of them, such as Bidi having been there since the start. The first floor is currently abandoned except for an office or two, which were previously confined to the very top floors of the building.
“For it’s time though it did work,” added Mattheou.
According to an employee in one of the small ground floor shops the problem is that they are not very visible, as the centre is just off Makarios Avenue. “We do have business but it’s difficult here because we’re hidden,” said the employee, explaining that some of the other shops have more of a chance as they face onto a main road. Meanwhile, a betting shop next door stands abandoned while the escalator that led up to the first floor was removed three months ago.
Capital Centre at the other end of Makarios Avenue was built in 1990. Over the last few years most of the shops on the ground floor and first floor have either moved elsewhere or closed down. The first floor has become so derelict with the exception of Café Caprice and two other stores, that the escalator has been removed and replaced with a staircase.
According to one of the shareholders of the building Capital Centre did actually not set out to be a mall. “We had a property that was old so we knocked it down, constructed Capital Centre and then sold the various spaces to whoever wanted one,” he said.
Architect Panos Hadjichristofis believes a major reason Nicosia’s attempt to create in-town malls failed was really quite simple. “A mall design traditionally has anchor shops or big players to buy up the big spaces, like Carrefour. The rest of the space then becomes attractive to other buyers,” he said. The Mall of Cyprus, for example, attracted not only Carrefour, but Debenhams and a whole host of other European chain stores. Back in the 1980s and 1990s when the Makarios malls were opened these stores simply did not exist in Cyprus.
The other obvious attraction is convenience. “It’s easier to get out of town instead of into town, because of congestion and for example the Mall of Cyprus is conveniently located on the highway,” said Hadjichristofis. “One of the reasons they are usually built out of town is that they want to attract people because there’s nothing else around.”
