Suburban malls bag high-end tenants

Orchard Road may have been voted the world's top shopping street but suburban malls are keeping pace by drawing high-profile international brands as tenants.

Three new malls in particular - JCube and Jem in Jurong East and 112 Katong in East Coast Road - have bagged some choice businesses.

Next month, Japanese lifestyle retailer Francfranc will open its first store here - and marking its maiden entry into South-east Asia - in JCube.

Last week, Jem announced that it will house Swedish retail giant H&M's second local store. Spanning three storeys, it will open next year.

112 Katong got the nod from high-end Danish furniture store Bo Concept when it decided to relocate from Devonshire Road. The mall is also where Cortina - which has downtown outlets - has branched out to, becoming the first luxury-watch retailer to have a presence in a suburban mall.

These retail movements continue a trend which started in 2009 when Japanese casualwear giant Uniqlo chose to launch its first Singapore store at Tampines 1 mall.

Suburban malls have demonstrated their resilience during economic downturns and during times of low tourist numbers, such as the Sars period, and will therefore be attractive to retailers.

In the final quarter of last year, the rental gap between prime Orchard Road retail space and top suburban locations narrowed to the lowest level on record.

Source: The Straits Times – 7 April 2012