Underground retail centre to address shortage of parking

A ground-breaking ceremony was held yesterday for the country’s first underground retail and entertainment centre, situated under HCM City’s Le Van Tam Park in District 1.

The chairman of the Under Ground Corporation (IUS), Le Tuan, said he expected the project to be completed in three years.

The project, which will include a large car park, aims to help reduce the city’s chronic shortage of parking spaces.

With a price tag of about US$110 million to develop, the centre will include a total floor space of 103,000sq.m. It will have two wings, one with five floors of parking space and technical infrastructure and the other, with three floors for commercial and service areas. The parking space will be able to house 28 buses and trucks, 1,250 cars and more than 2,000 motorbikes.

IUS has hired Singapore’s HTE consulting firm to manage preservation and temporary relocation of Le Van Tam Park.

Tuan said a landscape design contest would be organised for the new park.

German company Bauer was selected as the contractor to lay the project’s foundation. IUS signed a build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract for the project with the HCM City’s People’s Committee last October.

IUS is a member of the joint stock venture investment group VC Invest, which has stakes in companies including Green-E, Gia Dinh Infrastructure, DongA Bank, Tien Giang Industrial Park and Infrastructure Development and others.

Work is expected to start in November on underground parking at the Trong Dong Performance Stage on the corner of Cach Mang Thang Tam and Nguyen Du streets.

The municipal People’s Committee granted an investment certificate for the project to Dong Duong Corporation in February. The project has total investment of more than VND880 billion ($46.3 million).

Dong Duong has also received approval for carrying out a feasibility study on a project to develop car parking under the Hoa Lu Stadium. It should complete all required documents and apply for the project prior to the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the urban and industrial park development corporation IDICO is carrying out a feasibility study for another parking project under the Tao Dan football grounds. It is estimated that it would cost VND1.443 trillion ($75 million). — VNS

Tags: Vietnam retail market, Vietnam retail spaces