I have never been to certain parts of Jakarta since I've lived in Singapore in the past 6 years. Last week, I had a chance to visit Depok, a suburb town just south of Jakarta, which I used to visit frequently since that's where my university campus is located. And I am really surprised to see the development of Depok in the past decade, especially the development of the shopping malls around the area.
Just a couple of hundred meters away from my campus, I saw a new big shopping mall, Depok Town Square, which is better known as "Detos". Across the road, there's another big shopping mall which is on the last phase of completion. Near the bus terminal, there's another shopping mall, ITC Depok, with Carrefour hypermart as the anchor tenant.
The one I managed to visit is the Depok Town Square (see left picture). It's a very big mall, unfortunately it's a bit empty, probably because it's quite new. There's the big Matahari hypermart on the basement, and some stores and restaurants on the ground and first floor. The higher the floor, the emptier it is.
A bit nearer to my family's house in Cinere, there's also a new shopping mall being opened in Lebak Bulus area. It's called Poins Square (see right picture), with the Giant hypermart on the basement floor as the anchor tenant. The location is exactly opposite the Carrefour hypermart nearby. Wow, what a great competition! The mall is quite big, almost as big as Depok Town Square, except it has more open stores compared to Detos, which is fairly empty.Another newly built shopping mall, which is actually not really new but I only managed to visit it last week, is Pondok Indah Mall (PIM) 2, which is located just across the road from the famous PIM 1. It's connected to PIM 1 with two bridges, giving seamless connection between the two malls. Compared to Poins Square or Detos which is more for middle class, PIM 2 is more for the high class, with high class shops and restaurants, similar to Ngee Ann City (Takashimaya) in Singapore. Nevertheless, the new food court at the third floor is worth visiting, with almost all cuisines available, from Soto Betawi, Fiesta Steak to KFC.
Read the Indonesian version of this post.
6 comments:
Ah Depok.. I miss that place.. But I bet it's more 'macet' nowadays with all the big malls.. :-)
It is. They have upgraded the Jalan Margonda Raya from single carriageway to dual carriageway, but still cannot alleviate the traffic jam especially during peak rush hour.
Over the last couple of months I have been telling the owners and managers of shopping centers and malls around the world that we have created the best way to help shoppers particularly in the crowded malls like the ones around Singapore and Jakarta
We have developed a way to put shop specials, a mall directory, details of what’s happening and coming up in the malls plus other information, even feedback, onto just about any mobile phone screen. Shoppers don’t even have to be in the mall at the time!
You can be at home or on the bus or sipping coffee somewhere and can check out the shop specials or see what’s coming up in your favourite mall. You only receive what you request and it is easy to set up and use.
We call it Mall Mobile and it operates on the normal mobile network and it is not SMS. It all happens without being bombarded with ads. There is no cost apart from any carrier data costs.
There are more than 2 billion mobile phones in the world today and every one of those was bought by a shopper!
We know that a great way to help shoppers decide where to shop is to show them what is available before they hit the malls - on the screen of their mobile phones. Then, when they get to the shops, it will help them find where everything is located. It sure makes the decision where to shop a whole lot easier!
Malls are starting to use Mall Mobile around the world and I’m sure that it will be a standard in shopping malls in the future but it will be driven initially by people demanding information rather than malls offering it until the shopping centres and malls realise that it is wanted and needed by their customers.
Please feel free to email me at stuarth@bluepulse.com if you’d like to tell me the names of malls where you would like to see it and I’ll be happy to contact them.
Thanks Stuart for sharing.
yea you got it right, JKT got new malls here and there. The government must encourge making new parks instead.
Yes, I agree that the government should build new parks instead. Big cities in Indonesia, especially Jakarta, really in needs of fresh air.
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