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Dubai to have specialised shopping mall

Known for its mega shopping malls, Dubai is a magnet for shopholics and attracts a large number of tourists who come for shopping only.
The emirate will soon witness an addition of a new specialised shopping mall for home furnishing products such as carpets, furniture, interiors, lights, curtains and art among others.
Costing around Dh700-million, "Art of Living Mall" will open in September 2018. Located in Al Barsha 2, it is spanned over 508,000sqft with leasable area of 250,000 sqft and will house 100 outlets.
Samer Al Omari, chief executive officer, MMS Global Investments, the developer of the mall, said the company is in the process of leasing the mall.
"We have received applications from interested companies and within one month we will finalise all the applications and agreement with the companies. We want to have a right tenant mix, therefore, I can't disclose the names now. But we we'll have a lot of big Italian and local brands," Al Omari told Khaleej Times in an interview.
Currently, there is one technology-focused specialised shopping mall - iMall - located on Etihad Road on Sharjah-Dubai border. This reflects that the specialised mall concept is gaining traction to attract customers as competition heats up among the shopping malls. Therefore, small and medium investors are focusing on specialised mall as they will not be able to compete with some major players currently dominating the market.
Al Omari said "Art of Living Mall" is the first of its kind specialised mall in the Middle East and Dubai being the centre and hub for business, the mall will be successful.
"It is a completely different concept as compared to other malls. Most of the shopping malls are almost offering the same things such as fashion, shoes and textiles etc., but this is a specialised mall with more variety of products such as furniture, gift items, home appliances, bed, bath and kitchen accessories etc. It is a completely different idea," he said.
MMS Global will also replicate this concept to other parts of the UAE and GCC countries. "Next one will be in Abu Dhabi. We expect the work to begin on the project in the next early year with same concept as a specialisised mall for furniture, interiors, lights, carpet, curtains and art et. We hope Abu Dhabi projects to be operational by 2020 as well," Al Omari concluded. 
- waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com