The Multi-million dollar Delta Mall has been recording about 12,000 visitors daily since the shopping facility located in the Warri-Effurun metropolis opened for business about three weeks ago.
The head of the Mall's management team of Broll Properties, consultants to investors of the Delta Mall, Mr. Oni Olusola, revealed this in a chat with newsmen in Warri, saying the project would be launched in three phases, including the shopping complex, a Lunch, Cinema and play arena.
He said that the newly commissioned Mall has so far been such an instant and unprecedented success that the management was already considering expanding the facility, even though work was still ongoing on the remaining two phases scheduled for commissioning in July and September.
The shopping mall is still a budding business in Nigeria but with a future that could make the business bigger than the Telecoms business in the country", Olusola said.
The objective was to open up the Nigerian economy with a lot of credible foreign investors coming in and a lot of jobs created, he added, noting that about 57 per cent of the workforce at Delta Mall has been recruited from the host community, primarily from the Uvwie Local Government Area.
According to Olusola, "The idea of a mall is to create a place where shoppers come together to buy and everything they want they can get; and, since we opened tis Mall for trading we have been doing about 12,000 footfalls everyday. From what I've seen in the few weeks we've opened, it is a successful project already.
"I can tell you this, the shopping mall is still at its infant stage in Nigeria. It's going to be like the Telecoms business, or even bigger than the Telecoms business in the country. We are replicating this in Benin-City, Asaba, Owerri, Port Harcourt and Abeokuta; and, we are also going to do it in Lagos. The dream is that in future we won't have to operate the open market in our towns and cities. Traders and market women will sell in the mall, in a better environment."
On whether the investors were worried over fears expressed in certain quarters about insecurity in the Warri axis, he dismissed such fears as merely a matter of individual perception. "There is no place that is perfectly secured; it's just a matter of perception. I've been here and in the midst of the people. The people are warm, they are friendly and patronizing", Olusola said.
Olusola described the commissioning of the Delta Mall by Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan as a "well-deserved honour to someone who has shown total commitment to providing an enabling environment; who has been a good father, friend and partner right from the time the project was conceived."
Speaking during the official opening of the Delta Mall on his last day as Delta State Governor, Uduaghan noted that the mall was another in the string of testimonies to the success of his government's Peace and Security agendum in a three-pronged development template that included Human Capital Development and Infrastructure development.
Uduaghan said: "This mall is going to improve the economic activities of this area. It is going to provide jobs and business opportunities to Deltans and non-Deltans as well. It'll be a is going to place where quality goods and services will be accessed by Deltans. It'll provide an arena where our farmers can package their produce well for sale. The onus is on all well-meaning Deltans to contribute to the development of a Delta State that is not dependent on oil revenue to survive. This is the era of proper development."
While thanking the traditional leaders and people of the host community of Uvwie for their cooperation towards the establishment of the project, he advised famers in the state to brace and take full advantage of the trading facility to market their agricultural products.
Uduaghan, who took the opportunity to exchange banters and pose for photographs with hundreds of children who had seized the occasion of national Children's Day holiday to throng the Mall, however charged the people to be of good conduct while at the place as others were also being attracted from other places outside Warri and outside the state.
The Managing Director, Resilient Africa Real Estate company of South Africa, Mr. Holden Marshall, also expressed delight for the successful take-off of the Delta Mall, saying it was the business concern's first major project in Nigeria. “The architectural and engineering designs were conceived and prepared in South Africa in conjunction with Nigerian architects and engineers,” he stated
Aside from 'Shoprite', the premium anchor shop, other major tenants at the $57 million Delta Mall, include Mr. Price, Kilimanjaro, Lifemate, KFC, Max Fashion, Dynasty and Pep.
The groundbreaking and foundation laying ceremony of the facility, which has foreign and local investors partnering the data State Government, was performed by Uduaghan in June, 2013.
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