Dubai: The Lamcy Plaza, hit by a fire outbreak in early March, is on track for a reopening in August, according to a top official with the mall management.
“It’s not that the mall cannot be opened tomorrow — but we want to make sure the building is completely safe for everyone when we eventually do so,” said Jayant Ganwani, CEO of Lals Group. “The most important concern we and the civic authorities have is to basically make sure that there are no health and safety issues for customers.
“In the order of priority, this means the structure is safe, the air quality is extremely good, fire fighting and security services are all up at the time. We should be seeing Lamcy come back to full operational status in August — and that’s based on the last input I had.”
The open plan design within Lamcy poses its own challenges in prepping the mall back into relaunch mode. Because of the design — whereby the individual shops across each floor flow seamlessly onto the other — the smoke circulated “to every inch” when the fire broke out. This made the cleaning effort to remove the carbon from the building all the more arduous, apart from getting the energy services reinstated as well as the updated firefighting systems.
Would it also mean that some of the original structure also needs a bit of reworking? According to Ganwani, “You cannot change the culture of a property — the slabs are designed in a certain way and you cannot reconfigure a building unless you raze it to the ground.
“And we have no interest to do that, and neither does the landlord. The structure will not allow new partitions and thus will remain the same. Accidents happen, and unfortunately we can’t do anything about them.” (The Lals Group has a head-lease on the property, which is owned by an Emirati business family.)
It has been over 20 years since the mall opened, and during the time has been central to that neighbourhood’s retail aspirations. The growing resident and office base in the wider catchment area also played well with Lamcy’s prospects. Which makes the enforced timeout because of the fire all the more galling.
Will anything specifically change as an outcome of the fire? “As I said, structurally nothing will change — but it gives us an opportunity to spruce up,” said Ganwani.
“As for the costs involved, until the building is operational you are not going to tabulate the expenses. You can get a proper grip only when the building is up and running — that’s when you know the where, what and how.
“Nothing needs to change on the food court either. There is zero visibility of what had happened because of the fire. The only change comes from those new tenants who were under fit-out at the time and who will open when Lamcy reopens.
“By definition, the reinstatement of the building is the landlord’s responsibility. He has the insurance for it... and we are responsible for our own operational costs.” In the interim, Lamcy’s retailers will have some work to do with their stocks. “They have the inventory that needs to get liquidated somewhere else,” he added. “And inventory tends to be seasonal. The closure of 4-4.5 months is longer than we anticipated. But there were no shortcuts around it.
“It’s a very difficult time for everyone at Lamcy. Apart from inventory, retailers have the personnel and other costs to deal with. When you are knocked out of business, even temporarily, you don’t know what will happen to all those facets.
“But the best part for me is that all of our tenants are as keen for the reopening as we are. And so are the customers. Everyone’s prepared to work together to make it happen at the earliest possible date. And we have all learned from this.”
