Developer Taubman Asia Brings Ritzy Retail to Cotai
A star-studded list of luxury brands to open flagship stores in the Mall at Studio City.
In a speech delivered on August 27 at the Taubman Asia headquarters in Hong Kong, the company’s president, Morgan Parker, revealed the high-end retailers already pledging to house flagship stores in the shopping centre at Macau Studio City, scheduled to open on the Cotai Strip in 2011. The list is enough to make any Hollywood celebrity’s heart skip a beat.
Asia’s “ultimate luxury shopping centre” will be home to A. Lange & Söhne, Alfred Dunhill, Berluti, Bottega Veneta, Bulgari, Burberry, Cartier, Chopard, Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Ermenegildo Zegna, Fendi, Franck Muller, Gucci, Miu Miu, Montblanc, Omega, Piaget, Prada, Roger Vivier, Tod’s, Van Cleef & Arpels and Versace, among others. “In one venue we have brought together all of the luxury brands, in flagship formats seen only in the fashion high streets of Hong Kong, Paris, New York, Milan and Tokyo,” said Morgan Parker, president of Taubman Asia. A subsidiary of Taubman Centres – a global leader of the shopping centre industry – Taubman Asia is focused on owning, managing, developing and acquiring high-quality and sustainable retail real estate projects in Asia. Taubman’s maiden voyages outside the United States are the Songdo Shopping Centre, on the Incheon Waterfront near Seoul, and the Mall at Macau Studio City, both scheduled for completion in three to four years.
The Mall at Studio City is the shopping centre component of the US$2.5 billion Macau Studio City, which combines theatre, retail, gaming, entertainment and world-class hotels on a prime Cotai Strip location. When it opens its doors to the public, the Mall at Studio City will house a total of 140 stores within its approximately 600,000 square feet of gross leasable space and will be the only retail centre on Cotai with luxury flagships.
Three quarters of the mall are already committed, and additional major fashion brands are expected to be announced in the coming months. “Many of the stores at the Mall at Studio City will be among the biggest stores for that brand in the world,” Parker said.
The president of Taubman Asia cited rising consumerism, expanding international retailer networks and Asia’s love affair with luxury as incentives for opening the Hong Kong Regional Headquarters in early 2005. Chinese consumers already represent 18% of luxury sales worldwide, and by 2014 are expected to be the world’s largest luxury consumer group, moving ahead of Europe, Japan and the United States.
“Macau is the fastest growing retail market in Asia, and together with Hong Kong, Macau is the very best ‘access portal’ to China’s growing appetite for luxury,” stressed Parker. He added that even with Hong Kong’s affluent and consumptionsavvy population of 7 million people, up to three quarters of the region’s luxury retail sales go to tourists – the vast majority of which are Mainland Chinese.
He sees Macau as having an advantage over Hong Kong and other emerging Asian markets due to “the uniquely potent synergy created between shopping and gaming.” According to Parker, casino
retailing ranks at or near the top when it comes to luxury sales productivity. “We have witnessed this in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and it’s already happening in Macau.” The opportunity to develop the Mall at Macau Studio City arose in 2006.
Taubman Asia chose the venue because of its retail-centric design – the mall is the showpiece of the project – and its prime location. Macau Studio City sits at the centre of the Cotai strip and directly articulates with the future light rail and the immigration checkpoint at the end of the Lotus Bridge from Zhuhai.
Parker believes that Taubman’s 60 years of design experience in the United States have distilled a formula for retail success. “Our designs are premised on fundamental human psychology, like the need to feel comfortable in a space, to be oriented, to be able to navigate and be inspired at the same time.” He cites Taubman’s common-sense “80/80” rule: “At a minimum we need to get 80% of our customers past 80% of our stores on each single visit to the centre.”