SL’s largest shopping mall ready by 2016

H.D.H Senewiratne

Overseas Reality (Ceylon) Plc, together with Bank of Ceylon will construct Sri Lanka’s largest shopping complex/mall as a joint venture project at a cost of US $ 100 million. The project will commence this year and is planned to be completed by 2016.

“This would be Sri Lanka’s largest shopping complex with a 250,000 leasable sq ft area with a higher proposition of food and beverage areas along with a modern amenities within the Havelock City project premises, ‘ Chief Executive Officer Pravir Samarasinghe told Daily News Business .

He said that this shopping complex would have a large dinning area, food court, casual eating area and also an entertainment component will be added to it with a multiplex cinema hall to provide an excellent experience to visitors and people who patronize the shopping complex. Samarsinghe said when the company starts their last phase of the project, it would comprise eight towers altogether with 1,100 apartments in the Havelock City project.

“This would comprise a shopping mall, cinema, hotel & service apartments, restaurants, swimming pool and gym. We are going ahead with the plans and are now in the process of constructing the 280 apartment premier apartment project with 280 units while 60 percent of them have already been sold by now,” Samarasinghe said. He said that with these developments, the land prices of central business district were high due to the disposal of state lands, while the land prices of secondary business district had not increased during the recent past.

"The proposed 100 percent land tax as well as the leasing tax on foreign buying would have an impact on land prices, which would decrease the number of commercial transactions involved in foreign buying," he said. Mireka Capital Land (Pvt) Limited is the developer of Havelock City and is a joint venture between Overseas Realty (Ceylon) PLC (ORCPLC), the owner, developer and manager of the World Trade Center, Colombo and the Bank of Ceylon (BoC), the largest bank in Sri Lanka. ORCPLC owns 60 percent of Mireka, while BoC owns the remaining 40 percent.

Overseas Realty (Ceylon) PLC (ORCL) is a Board of Investment flagship company incorporated in Sri Lanka in 1980 to undertake the principal activities of investment in properties, property development, trading and management. It is a public quoted company with listing in the Stock Exchange of Sri Lanka.

Singapore based real estate specialists, Shing Kwan Group, holds approximately 92 percent of the existing issued share capital of the company. Shing Kwan Group’s portfolio of expertise includes investment, development and management of real estate in China (Nanjing, Beijing and Shanghai), Indonesia (Jakarta) and Singapore.

Source : dailynews.lk