Good morning, Accra! Just a week to go before Atterbury opens the biggest mall in West Africa

Two years of intense work is winding down to the finishing touches as Atterbury’s first massive project outside South Africa, since the completion of Bagatelle – Mall of Mauritius in 2011 prepares to welcome Ghanaians into its airconditioned hallways later this month. When West Hills Mall throws opens its doors to the 3 million people of the capital city, Accra on 30 October, it will be biggest mall in West Africa. As part of the project Atterbury invested in major infrastructure development, building the the mall its very own interchange on the highway alongside, to facilitate access to the 27 000 square metre shopper’s paradise.

Ghana has many qualities that made it the best possible territory for Atterbury to start its expansion into Africa, yet building a mall from scratch in a foreign country has a particular set of challenges, says Cobus van Heerden, Atterbury’s retail director, who oversaw the project from the planning stages right through to the forthcoming grand opening. “Regulations are different, ways of working are different because workers’ training is different; the first languages are different just as in South Africa…”

In addition services are notoriously unreliable which complicates construction and necessitated a Plan B for everything, he explains. “You can’t assume you’ll have water when you turn on the tap, and electricity supply is unstable, so we had to ensure that we always had standby power, and 48 hours of backup water in case we needed it. We even built a sewage purification plant for the mall.”

And yet everything ran according to schedule and the mall is set to open, as planned, on the last Thursday of October. “Some of the tenants needed a bit of extra convincing that we would indeed be finished in time, and in the last phase it has been important for us to ensure that each and every store will be ready on time so that they can all open on 30 October,” says Van Heerden

The mall will have around 70 tenants, and according to Van Heerden it is a careful mix of local, South African and international shops. For some big South African retailers such as Edgars and Jet, it is their first stores in Ghana. And they too have lessons to learn about adapting to the new territory they find themselves in. “Ghana doesn’t have seasons… it is always hot and humid. So a store like Edgars has to have a completely different approach to fashion, for instance … there is never winter, so summer stock is required year-round.”
The tropical climate also means that Atterbury had to veer from some of their tried and tested recipes, such as where air conditioning goes. “In our South African malls, only the shops are air conditioned, but in Ghana that is also necessary in all the walkways and passages. But you adapt…

Similar to the Atterbury malls we are familiar with in SA, the anchor tenants were carefully selected and placed, with the food court as a central focal point around an outdoor area that includes a fountain. To cement a sense of the place, traditional West African Adrinka symbols have been incorporated into the decorative design. The land they acquired was big enough that the mall is only on one level, which makes for better flow, says Van Heerden. The Ghanaian cinema chain Silverbird has five cinemas in the complex and along with eight local chain restaurants West Hills will bring the familiar Atterbury lifestyle experience to Accra. The two anchor tenants are our very own Shoprite and a similar Ghanaian convenience store called Palace.

The mall’s Facebook page already has a massive following of over 61 000 likes, and the countdown to the grand opening has started. Van Heerden shares Atterbury’s tried and tested mall-opening strategy: “You open on the last Thursday of the month. It gives the tenants a chance to settle in just before the weekend, so that issues are ironed out and everyone can make the most of the excitement around that first weekend. It’s just after payday, so the shoppers have cash to spend, and everybody wins.” Get ready, Accra!