JEDDAH — The retail sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the immense industries across the GCC, where its value exceeded SR637.53 billion ($170 billion) and the kingdom held 70%. Worldwide, the industry grew at 11% where Saudi Arabia thrived at 10%. Various factors affect the industry’s development including, stability, population and real estate growth accompanied by the purchasing power of consumers.

Retail sector and commercial centers influence the national income of the Kingdom, especially with the increase of purchase power across the large target audience within the local society. Along the lines of these aspects, Red Sea Markets Company Ltd, the owning company of Red Sea Mall is investing SR220 million to expand its center, in a step towards fulfilling the increasing demand for rental space.

Accordingly, the Red Sea Markets Company Ltd signed an agreement with the United Construction Company to finalize Gate 9 expansion project, which will then be labeled as Gate 1.

With this expansion, the development process will see the light after it was approved by the Board of Directors back in 2014. The project started by constructing the smart parking lots and the expansion of Gate 2 & 3 that was concluded last May 2017.

“The demand during the past few years has been increasing for rental space and we have a waiting list of potential retailers. We witnessed an increase on space rental at 8% annually, so we decided to study an expansion plan and we could conclude the first phase and now we are in the process of finalizing the second phase. This extension is considered vital for the Red Sea Markets company, the local community as well as it will be contributing to the local economy and related industries through providing the demand with the required supply of commercial rental space”, explained Aidrous Al Bar, Executive Board Member of Red Sea Markets Company Ltd, the owning company of Red Sea Mall.

The expansion of gate 9 will include the main gate that consists of gardens, seating areas, and a shaded area at 1,300 meters, in addition to the ground floor at 3,800 meters to include various restaurants, while the first floor will be at 3,900 meters especially designed for children’s entertainment or restaurants. Moreover, there will additional parking lots at 9,000 meters, which will make the total expansion project standing at 18,000 sqm. — SG

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