The Coimbatore Corporation is planning to construct a
mall on D.B. Road, R.S. Puram. Sources in the Corporation said the
facility would come up on the parking lot, adjacent to the place the
Kennedy Theatre once stood.

The prime location of the
land in a commercial hub, the extent of land available – 3.50 acre is
the area _ the revenue the Corporation would earn, among other things,
were the considerations that weighed in the minds of the Corporation’s
decision makers.

The sources said the civic body
would develop the mall on the public-private partnership mode, offer the
land on lease to the private player and also contribute to the capital
expenditure.

The return on investment would equal the civic body’s share of the capital expenditure.

The
Corporation had estimated that the mall would cost Rs. 120 crore and
that it could chip in with Rs. 30 crore or a little more. It had also
decided that it would avail itself of a loan to raise the money and that
repayment would not be a burden.

As per the proposed
plan, the private party would build six lakh square feet – three of
which would be for parking vehicles and the rest for the shopping area.

The sources also said that three basements of one lakh square feet each would be used for parking.

And,
of the three, two would be used by the private party or promoter and
the remaining floor would be thrown open to the public for parking.

The
shopping area would be spread over four floors, would be fully
air-conditioned, have elevators and escalators along with a host of
modern amenities that would rival other malls elsewhere.

The
Corporation also said that if the agreement period was for 20 years and
that the rent charged was Rs. 50 square feet, the Corporation’s share
at 30 per cent of the total income worked out to Rs. 5.40 crore a year.

The
sources also indicated that the present dispensation led by Mayor S.M.
Velusamy, Commissioner G. Latha and Deputy Commissioner S. Sivarasu was
favourably inclined towards the construction of the mall.

The officials had already approached a private player and that the talks were on at an advanced level.

The
sources added that since the Corporation was considering the mall, the
earlier proposal for a multi-level parking at the place would be
dropped.