Viva Home to be KL's new retail landmark

The four-storey Viva Home retail mall at Jalan Loke Yew, Kuala Lumpur, is set to change Cheras' landscape and spur new developments as well as improve the experience of shopping for your home.

Viva Home is the first of its kind retail mall in Malaysia. It is a one-stop centre for home products like furniture, furnishing, home decoration and home improvement services.

The 660,000-sq-ft mall, developed by Viva Mall Sdn Bhd, a unit of Kha Seng Corp Group, is opening by the end of this year.

Besides shops catering to every inch of the home, the mall will also offer lifestyle and entertainment elements, housing anchor tenants like MBO Cinemas with nine screens and ICT Gadgets, an information and communication technology section selling computers, accessories, handheld devices and telecommunications equipment.

There will be a range of food and beverage outlets, banks, a hypermarket and an exhibition hall, showcasing the latest home and home-related products and services.

Viva Home will have lot sizes ranging from 300 sq ft to 2,000 sq ft, while anchors will have space of up to 15,000 sq ft.

All the lots are for lease, and Viva Home is currently undergoing its leasing campaign.

"As a developer, we tend to look at long-term investment ... so we will retain the lots for recurring income and manage the retail mix," Viva Mall chief executive officer Yee Ia Howe said in an interview with Business Times.

The lots will be leased from RM4 per sq ft, depending on size and location, which is the current market price, Yee said.

Viva Home is part of a RM280 million two-phase redevelopment of Plaza Uncang Emas (UE3), which Kha Seng bought last year for some RM100 million.

The old mall at UE3 is being refurbished and renamed Viva Home. The phase two of the development will boast a 260-room business-class hotel, which will sit atop the mall.

Yee said work on the hotel will start by the end of this year.

"We believe in this project. We did a lot of research on how it will work. We are improving the access to Jalan Loke Yew and Jalan Cheras and building a pedestrian bridge from the Taman Miharja light rail transit station into the mall," he said.

Yee added that there will be clear merchandising zoning to ensure identifiable retail zones and concepts to make shopping easier and comfortable.

Viva Home will also have 2,000 parking bays.

By Business Times