Wanetsha Mosinyi
20 November 2008
The Square Mall, as the shopping precinct at the new Gaborone CBD is called, will open its doors to the public on Saturday when a departmental store will give customers an extensive experience.
Square Mart offers customers a wide range of food and non-food goods under one roof. The store is modelled on American chain store giant, Wal-Mart, that is renowned for being a discount departmental store that does not compromise on quality.
Unlike chain stores like Shoprite, Pick n' Pay, Choppies and Spar that sell mostly food, Square Mart also offers a variety of non-food merchandise like gifts, luggage bags, television and radio sets, tools, cosmetics, perfumes, jewellery, ornaments, leather goods and linen under one roof.
The GH Group, who are the promoters of the Square Mall and Square Mart, say the plan is to set high standards for future retail development in Botswana.
The Group's Head of Retail at the Group, Carl Fischer, says they chose the Square Mart concept because they want to offer customers high quality merchandise at affordable prices under one roof.
"We benchmarked this store on international retailers and I think Botswana is ready for this," he says. The promoters emphasise that Square Mall is not meant to compete with Game City or Riverwalk because it is smaller but offers focused quality and customer service.
Other companies that will be at the Square Mall are Stanbic Bank, Orange, Sonny Erickson and Eleganza Boutique.
The Executive Chairman of the GH Group, Gulaam Abdoola, says the P100 million Square Mall, is going to compliment The Tower, an office block opposite the shopping precinct. The Tower, which is also owned by the GH Group, is scheduled for completion in February next year.
Gulaam says the Group used imported state-of-the-art concepts throughout the Square Mall and The Tower from the architectural design stage to interior design. "We wanted to make a statement," he says.
Abdoola says The Tower, a magnificent and unique 10-storey office building, will give Gaborone and Botswana a new image. The glass and tile office block, which is modelled on a similar development in Dubai, is meant to be the benchmark for similar projects in the future.
The building will have two wings, the East Wing and the West Wing, each with seven floors of 400 square metres. The highest two floors will be 1,400 square metres each.
Abdoola says the display of such a development is also necessary for attracting capital into the country. "I believe we have reached the crossroads," he says, "we can't hide our country any more. With such developments, we want to raise the standards."
The GH Group is one of the first developers to start construction at the new Gaborone CBD where the Industrial Court is nearly finished while SADC headquarters is scheduled for completion early next year.
The whole new CBD area was serviced about 10 years ago and for some time it seemed it would remain a white elephant.
Mmegi is reliably informed that the government gave titleholders there two years to 2009 to complete development of their plots, but only four projects have gone up so far.
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