DUBAI: Vindico congratulates our client, Aldar Properties, on Yas Mall winning the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) Gold Award for Best New Development at the recently concluded RECon MENA 2015 Conference and Awards Gala held in Dubai. By providing an integrated retail delivery design and management service through an on-site team and design studios in London and Dubai, Vindico is proud to have been part of the Yas Mall success story.
Members of the Vindico retail delivery management team including Scott Strader (centre), Yas Mall Opening Project Leader (now Vindico’s Director of Sales) and Nihad Muzamil, Senior Retail Delivery Manager and Yas Mall Post-Opening Project Lead.
Vindico’s connection to Yas Mall extends back to 2008 when Vindico was first appointed as retail delivery consultants to the project, which went through a redesign phase during the challenging retail period that accompanied the global recession from 2009 to 2011. Vindico was reappointed in December 2012, following a hard-fought competitive tender. Managing Director, Richard Kim, served as the initial Project Lead for Yas Mall from 2009 to 2010 before Scott Strader, now Sales Director, led Vindico’s Yas Mall team up to its opening in November 2014.
“Yas Mall has been a key project for Vindico for a long period of time on a few fronts – an opportunity to re-engage with a breadth of the region’s retailers & brands, a deepening of our understanding of the Abu Dhabi market and of course, a mainstay of our relationship with Aldar, which continues to grow and evolve,” Richard explains.
(L-R) Vindico Founding Director, Marc McQuain discussing the opening of Yas Mall on site with Diana Petrucelli, Aldar’s Head of Retail Delivery for Yas Mall and Saoud Khoory, Deputy General Manager of Yas Mall.
The Yas Mall story highlights many of the capabilities and approaches that distinguishes Vindico as the region’s leading retail delivery specialists:
- Flexible fee and service model
Working with Aldar, the team was able to manage the tactical deployment of retail delivery services in response to the real challenges faced by developers in navigating cyclical leasing and construction markets. At Yas Mall, the original retail delivery budget accommodated a twelve-month change in the development programme with no additional cost to the client.
- Integrated design & management
Vindico’s use of site and studio-based teams in a combined design & management solution gave Aldar capacity inside the retail delivery process and programme to manage inevitable project challenges whilst pursuing its aspirations for quality and design differentiation from its tenants. Aldar also realised the importance of maintaining a resource-to-shop ratio that allowed Vindico’s team to give Yas Mall retailers the right level of attention.
- A focus on getting shops open
Vindico’s commitment to getting shops open and earning saw the team take the initiative in overcoming challenges that stood in the way of a successful grand opening, such as coordinating the helicopter airlift of tenant equipment to remote roof locations.
- Creating retail momentum
Yas Mall is soon to celebrate its first year of trading, and whilst there is a development focus on achieving a successful opening, the reality of retail property is that the stabilisation phase – from opening to having all units leased and open for the first time – is critical in establishing retail momentum for the future life of the asset. This focus on getting shops open has not wavered, and Yas Mall is now at the end of this stabilisation phase.
- Shopfront activation
Vindico and its sister company, Pop Modular Retail, responded to the need of activating non-trading units for Yas Mall’s opening with the installation and leasing of twelve strategically located PocketShops for Yas Mall’s grand opening, enhancing the customer experience by stimulating otherwise dormant retail frontages.
On winning this prestigious award, Scott Strader concludes, “We are very proud to be a part of an award winning project, and offer warm congratulations to our friends and colleagues in the Yas Mall team on winning the MECSC Gold Award. It’s very rewarding for everyone’s hard work to be recognised by our industry peers.”
To learn more about Vindico’s retail delivery role in the success of Yas Mall, download the Case Study here.
