Opportunity beckons families, small businesses as The Hive neighbourhood mall opens
For families and sundry residents of Oniru, also called Upper Victoria Island in Lagos, a new shopping opportunity and experience beckon as a moderate size mall out to cater for their small household needs has opened for business within their neighbourhood.
Known as The Hive, the new shopping mall developed and promoted by Hive Properties Limited, a property investment and development company, is a response to a growing family population in this part of town who go all the way to Lekki Phase I to do their shopping and banking transactions, particularly to buy little things like confectioneries.
“We identified the opportunity and felt we needed to fill the gap in the Oniru and Lekki Ocean Side. The mall is situated on the alternative route for those who do not want to use the toll road on the Lekki Epe Expressway. This is a very commercial area and I believe that the Lagos Government has also commercialized the area as well,” explained Seni Kusamotu, the company secretary.
The mall which stands on three floors with a roof top, has over 2,000 square metres lettable space. Unlike most malls, especially the big ones, which favour retailers of consumables as anchor tenants, The Hive has the First City Monument Bank (FCMB) as its anchor tenants.
“The bank supported us and will support us in the future”, Kusamotu said, pointing out that The flow of the facility gives equal opportunities to all shop owners and guarantees ease of movement for shoppers and other users of the mall.
The bank occupies the ground floor along with other shops ranging from 20 square metres to 56 square metres and this runs to the first and second floors. There are both commercial and office spaces in the mall.
“The beauty of the mall is that we also have a roof terrace that is dedicated to neighbourhood lounge, bars, relaxation place where people on their way back from work can sit down and relax, watch a football game and even have diner. That is the general idea,” the secretary said.
The big malls, he noted, are a bit far from where people live and it could be inconveniencing when all that were needed were a few groceries, a quick bite and small banking transaction.
The brighter side of the opportunity which this mall offers is that the affordability of the shops which are moderately priced and not in any way close to what the big malls charge. Again, the prices are not charged in foreign currencies.
For a mall as small as it is, the parking space is huge with enough space for 50 cars at any given time. “We sacrificed building a bigger mall with more lettable space to have more parking because we believe that people will be more comfortable coming here once they know that they don’t have to wait for people to move or block other vehicles. They would rather come here than go elsewhere with parking problems”, Kusamotu noted.
In addition to the parking space is adequate green area. The mall is purpose-built to give a particular feel of space and freedom of movement unlike some other facilities that are cramped. There is a large area here that is dedicated to green. It complements the ambience of the mall and projects it.
The mall boasts of adequate facilities such as two treatment plants for water and sewage; four water tanks down and two up. Shop owners could allow their clients to use their toilet or shoppers can use the communal toilets on the roof top. On health and safety, fire alarm systems and extinguishers are provided in all the units and there is a central fire hose on all floors.
Security at the mall is managed by the facility managers with CCTV cameras in the external part of the building to capture activities around the mall. There are also guards on foot patrol as well as armed security men.
CHUKA UROKO