Shopping at the new Mall of Zimbabwe

South African property developers McCormick Property Development (MPD) is developing a first of its kind Mall of Zimbabwe in Harare.

Construction of the mall is set to commence this year and is expected to open for trading in 2014.

The Mall of Zimbabwe will be the country's first fully enclosed regional mall with some of South Africa's national retailers and brands including Checkers, Pick n Pay, Woolworths, The Foschini Group, Edcon, Pepkor, Truworths, Famous Brands and the Spur Group lining up to trade at the new mall.

MPD managing director Jason McCormick says MPD in a joint venture with Augur Investments, who were the original owners of the site where the mall is being built is the developer of the Mall of Zimbabwe and the mall will be owned by both entities.

Currently in Zimbabwe, retail is characterised by very limited formal retail within the market that MPD is targeting - Borrowdale the highest-income market in the country.

There is currently a single, run-down open-plan shopping centre in the Borrowdale market (Sam Levys Village) that has done very little to modernise itself over the past decade.

Given that the market can handle a super-regional mall of the nature that MPD are proposing (92 000 square metre) GLA once complete) and the fact that the site is undoubtedly the best retail site in the country, its owners have gone all out to clean out the market and place most of the available retail demand in a single upmarket development which they believe will be to Harare what Sandton City was and is to Johannesburg.

"The Mall of Zimbabwe will undoubtedly be the most modern shopping facility ever developed in Zimbabwe featuring unique design concepts," says McCormick.

There is definately demand for sophisticated retail centres in Harare because it has sufficient capital and economic activity to justify a mall of this nature while other towns still have a long way to go prior to them having sufficient buying power to justify such a development.