The long-awaited inauguration of the $1.3 billion Reem Mall, home to Abu Dhabi first indoor snow park, took place on Wednesday, and the latest shopping destination is poised to offer several unique and innovative services to community members.
It’s been a nearly 10-year journey from the groundbreaking to the soft opening more than a year back, and reaching the stage of a grand inauguration by Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, said mall director Bruce von Kaufmann.
“The long delay was partly due to COVID-19, but companies were eager to get started. Carrefour opened in February 2022 and the whole district opened last year.”
He expects the shopping centre, which has a total leasable area of 186,000 square metres, to attract 16 to 18 million visitors a year.
The mall is being developed by Al Farwaniya Property Developments, a partnership between Agility Global, United Projects for Aviation Services Company (UPAC) and National Real Estate Company (NREC).
The sub-zero Snow Park Abu Dhabi is a unique selling point for the mall among more than 400 retail outlets, including around 80 food and beverage outlets, von Kaufmann said.
“Snow Park is a unique facility in Abu Dhabi. It also has all the retail and leisure facilities, all the big brands like Zara, Nike, Adidas, Eataly, New Shanghai, Bloomingdale`s, Vox Cinemas (with private rooms) and especially a family entertainment centre,” von Kaufmann said.
As part of the opening, the mall will launch a summer carnival with fun activities, live shows, music and entertainment.
Phygital Store, Cloud Space
von Kaufmann said several services are expected to be launched by the end of the year, including Cloud Space, a co-working space for small businesses and start-ups, and unique services. Concepts like the Phygital Store, which combines digital and physical experiences.
“The omnichannel [digital platform] will allow retailers, even those not present in the region, to participate through our marketplace. For example, if a Turkish fashion brand doesn’t want to incur the overhead of opening a store in the UAE, we will allow them to test their products through our marketplace,” he said.
“We will have a phygital store where you can see, touch and feel the products. If you like it, you can order it and have it delivered to your home,” he added, and if the product is available, you will collect it from a locker. “We expect to launch the phygital store in the third or fourth quarter.”
Lost Car Locator App
The mall plans to launch a new app next month with a unique feature that will allow you to track and find your way back to your car in the parking lot. There will be 6,400 car parks across two basement levels and four above ground.
“This is a common problem in shopping centres, people lose their cars. Our app gets you right back to your car. “Plus, the parking lots are very cleverly designed, so that people coming from Abu Dhabi city go upstairs and people coming from Reem Island go underground,” said von Kaufmann, who has lived in the country for 23 years and knows traffic bottlenecks.
