Construction is now underway on the third phase of Nanjing’s Deji Plaza. While that’s undoubtedly music to the ears of many a High Net Worth Individual, for Deji it’s symbolic of an ambition to be the top-performing mall in all of China.
¥4.025 billion and change, to be exact, is the amount being spent to bring to reality Deji Plaza Phase III in Nanjing’s Xinjiekou. The past few days has seen that money start to be spent on what was, for quite a number of years, a temporary car park.
That’s where Phase III will be located; east of Phase 2 and south of Changjiang Lu, west of Landmark Plaza and the Nanjing Culture & Art Centre, and north of Qingshi Jie.
Like Phase II, the new Deji development is to be a tall affair, some 37-floors high in fact, with an additional five basement-level floors, as Guandian.cn reports.
Responsible for spending all that money is the Nanjing Qixia Construction Group; that ¥4 billion needs return a building with a total construction area of 159,676.14 square metres.
It’s a sort of a trophy sale, of course, and one that the Nanjing Deji Group is undoubtedly hoping will push our City’s prime piece of retail real estate into the top position nationwide.
Deji Plaza at present ranks second in China behind Beijing SKP as a member of the elite club of malls that generate over ¥10 billion in annual sales.
That Nanjing is number 2 will come as a surprise to many, but there are good reasons for its excellent standing in China’s high-end retail landscape.
Nanjing boasts significant numbers of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI), but there are also those who come from neighbouring cities, such as Ma’anshan, where there is little in the way of luxury brands.
Nanjing is also capital of Jiangsu Province, the second richest in China, and therefore home to many a regional or national company headquarters.
Lastly there are the students, who in Nanjing are not so lowly. Nanjing boasts a large number of elite high schools. Those enrolled therein are knowledgeable about luxury brands and generously supported by their parents. It is also worth remembering that the student ratio in Nanjing is the highest in the country, at 10:1.
Deji Phase III will be drawing them all in, in record numbers to be sure. And that may very well be enough to propel Deji to China’s top spot.
