Achimota Retail Centre is opening this week and Ghana can’t wait! Roux Gerber is Atterbury’s man on the ground and he shares the final countdown…
Are you ready for Thursday?
We are 100% ready! It’s an unusual situation that we were actually completely finished with construction 2 weeks before opening day. We’re already doing the snagging that we usually only do after opening day.
What is happening at the mall during these final days?
The tenants are busy with the last fittings, and we’re helping tenants get ready to open on Thursday.
When you go to work the day before the opening, what do you do?
The last day is all about cleaning, and getting everything ready for the opening event, and I expect we’ll still be assisting tenants with last-minute finishing. We’ll also test all systems one last time, to check that everything that moves, works! It will be a long day… we expect an allnighter. We have to put pressure on tenants to ensure that everything is spotless and ready for Thursday morning!
What are the biggest challenges in this last phase before opening?
We’ve been much more involved with helping tenants doing fittings that we usually are. They would for instance arrive with material, but no contractor, so we have helped them tile, we’ve painted for them, installed extraction fans…. Our contractors have actually been playing a dual role now, mall snagging and helping the tenants get ready to open. We’ve also switched on the new mall generator early to enable the final work to be done, because Ghana’s electricity infrastructure is notoriously unreliable. Everyone has their own little generator, because at this point they are working 24/7 to get ready for opening day.
Are all the shops let – how much space is still available?
We’re about 85% let, and about 70% of the shops will open on Thursday. At this moment there are five shops that are still empty, although we are busy with final paperwork for a number of them.
Have the restaurants started taking bookings?
No, they won’t be fully operational on day one; they usually use the first two, three days to do training of staff, and then they offer specials at minimal cost during training. Many of them will participate in the opening day event by providing the catering.
We hear this is the first mall in Ghana to have a typical “chop bar” – what is this?
It refers to the typical local Ghanaian food, which everyone eats. It is affordable fare, with rice as the main ingredient – rice with fish, rice with chicken, and so on. But for the first time this is offered in a beautiful restaurant set-up – it is the first formal localised restaurant to open here.
How many people are you expecting over this first weekend?
We are expecting thousands! We saw that at West Hills Mall on opening day, and this will definitely be similar. Our marketing plan kicked in two weeks ago, and there has been coverage in local newspapers and on radio… Ghana loves anything that is new. So there will be masses of people, for sure.
Can you share one story of what the new tenants are up to in this final week?
Ghanaians are very laid-back, and they often leave things for tomorrow, with the result that it is now a mad rush to get ready for opening day. We have kept the pressure up; the other day one of the tenants thanked me for coming every morning to make fire under them, if it wasn’t for that, he said, they’d never get it done on time! Ghanaians are also very devout, so it not unusual for them to arrive and the morning and do a group prayer with all their workers before they start work… that is something special to see.
Achimota in numbers
1 – the first restaurant to serve the local traditional fare in a mall in Ghana
2 – the number of anchor tenants, Shoprite and Palace
51 – the number of shops in total
250 – the number of undercover parking bays
500+ – the number of local people who will start work at the mall on Thursday
585 – how many cars the parking area can accommodate
1 000+ – the number of local workers employed during the construction process
15 000 – the square metres of trading space available
35 790 – the square metres of the total site area
