Phuket Gains Two Billion Baht Shopping Mall
Phuket Gains Two Bn Baht Explorer Shopping Mall
By Phuketwan.com/ Chutima Sidasathian
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Phuket has won its first large resort and shopping complex as part of a two billion baht development that will also include lagoonside pool villas, a conference centre and a permanent motor showroom.
The 105-metre entrance to the property is now hidden by a shiny metallic fence opposite the Cherng Talay Police Station. Inside, the property widens to embrace an area of 57 rai and the shores of the existing lagoon.
The Explorer Phuket will centre around a large shopping mall and a four-star resort. Details of the scale and design of the mall should become available in February.
Unusually, part of the funding has come in a loan from the Islam Bank, noted for its high principles and low interest.
Apirak Kebsap, the project consultant, told Phuketwan that the area was a landmark site, ideal for such a development.
”The Explorer Phuket may be a kilometre from the beachfront, but we don’t think that matters too much in this prime location,” he said.
”We looked around the island and noted that the north did not have a decent shopping mall of the size and quality of Jungceylon or Central Festival.
”It may even rival those two in scale eventually. Investment on Phuket is still very strong compared to other parts of Thailand.”
Pool villas that will be part of the project are expected to be priced attractively. But Khun Apirak did add that security and safety on the island could and should be improved.
”It’s really not good when the number of tourists and residents of Phuket has increased quite dramatically, while police numbers have not grown,” he said.
Being within a couple of hundred metres of the local police station is probably as secure as it’s possible to get on Phuket.
While Phuket seemed to have come through the economic downturn with fewer problems than other places, Khun Apirak said banks had grown more cautious and were keen to invest in the right kind of products.
Having a quality shopping mall in the north-west of the island will not harm property values around the Laguna Phuket complex nearby.
The large Bang Tao beach destination resort, which recently added an Outrigger to its array of brands, remains the island’s leader in terms of melding holiday accommodation and property sales.
The road from Cherng Talay to the Heroines’ Monument, now in the process of being broadened to four lanes, is rapidly filling up with housing estate developments on both sides.
A swifter route from Thepkasattri Road, the island’s backbone highway, to a quality shopping centre would probably appeal to all those people in ”Greater Phuket,” otherwise known as Phang Nga, and Krabi.
At present they have to drive much further south to Central Festival or to Jungceylon. Many of those below the Heroines’ Monument would also find a drive north to shop in Cherng Thalay easier than going south.
