Kigali will soon be home to two new shopping malls, Masterpiece Mall and Silverback Mall, offering shoppers more options.

Masterpiece Mall is a $16-million complex located on Remera-Kanombe road at Giporoso.

Silverback Mall, on the other hand, is located at the former Sonatubes in Kicukiro.

Residents and shoppers who spoke to Business Times expressed enthusiasm over the new malls with some hoping to see retailers offering alternative spots for social gatherings at affordable rates.

"I am so excited about how I am just in the middle of two shopping malls, plus it reflects the development of the country. The buildings look amazing and modernized,” Annette Tengwa, a resident of Kicukiro said.

A new commercial complex that sits close to Sonatubes in Kicukiro District. Photos by Craish Bahizi.

Tengwa added that decent shopping centres in Kigali tend to be high-end, limiting people to go there.

"My hope is to see the alternative businesses offering affordable prices,” she said.

Emmanuel Nkusi, another Remera-based resident, said: "As citizens, we feel grateful for this new facility because it gives us options to shop from a modern market as opposed to the messy facilities that we had here before,”

The same insights are shared by Linda Umulisa, who said that previously "the place used to be chaotic” with a few people willing to go there for shopping.

"I hope it will be affordable for every Rwandan who want to acquire space there and be easily accessible to everyone who wants to go shopping,” she noted.

Managing Director of SRI Investment, Chirag Daswani, speaking on Monday.

Chirag Daswani, the Managing Director of SRI Investments Limited behind Masterpiece Mall, told this paper that they have designed the complex to be a hub for people who live around Kicukiro, Kabeza, Kimironko, Kanombe neighbourhoods and the surrounding population.

"We also want to be a one-stop-shop point where a family can come in and be able to spend their whole day here, effectively becoming a family venue,” he said.

 "Let’s say the father wants to go shopping. Mother says I’ve had a hard week. I want to sit down and relax. The complex has been designed to be a safe and controlled environment for them,” he added.

Occupancy increasing

Already, tenants have taken up 50 per cent of the space with expectation to reach a high occupancy rate by the time they will officially open the mall to the public in March.

Emporium, Isuzu, Molatto, Mango Telecom, Zenses Spa, Home Stores have already acquired space, while MTN Rwanda, Banque Populaire du Rwanda and Bank of Kigali are yet to finalise negotiations with the owners.

The project has taken approximately four years to complete, having started in March, 2016 and completes in March, 2020.

"This is our first project in this space, you know, we intend to do more but for the first time it’s taken us a lot of learning and it’s taking us a lot of time,” he said.

However, investors say the construction work was delayed by a negotiation process in which SRI Investments was trying to secure deal with Home Stores USA to take a majority of the space on the site.

According to the company, the negotiation went on for quite a while, but in the end, it didn’t take shape.

"So we had paused it for a while to customize it for them. Otherwise, if we had done the construction without their endorsement it would have been a double work,” Daswani noted.

Meanwhile, efforts to reach the owners of Silverback Mall were futile, but sources close to them told us that they were putting finishing work on the complex and processing the paperwork to start the operation.

A source revealed that the occupancy rate was at around 20 per cent with Equity Bank and a gymnasium already having already acquired spaces.

Are malls shrinking?

The two malls come at a time when there is a rise in online shopping. The rise of e-commerce businesses has made it possible for people to virtually get anything from the comfort of their home.

This has pushed malls out of business, especially in the developed world.

While that trend isn’t compared to what’s happening in Rwanda, mall owners think the right models help malls survive the digital age.

Daswani highlighted that it all comes down to how innovative mall players can be.

"That’s why we have designed the complex to provide enough space for social interaction, because at the end of the day people need that space regardless of the presence of technology,” he noted.