This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 22, 2022 - August 28, 2022

The three main elements that The Summit Subang USJ management corporation (MC) and property manager focused on when they refurbished and upgraded the 24-year-old stratified shopping mall were safety, security and health. This has earned it a Bronze in the 10 Years and Above Retail — Strata category.

Once a landmark on the fringes of the mature USJ township in Subang Jaya, it is now a relatively older mall in the competitive Klang Valley retail market. After more than two decades, it is not without its fair share of challenges.

When the mall was injected into AmFIRST Real Estate Investment Trust (AmFIRST) in 2008, it already had a “sunset image”. Upgrading and refurbishment works were conducted to give it a facelift but very soon, The Summit Subang USJ faced its first major challenge — the construction of an extension of the light rail transit (LRT) system on a 1.02-acre parcel in front of the mall from 2012 to 2016.

Like other construction sites in Malaysia, the LRT construction came with hoardings, essentially blocking the façade of the mall. Not only that, some shoppers wrongly assumed that the mall had stopped operating when it was still business as usual there.

While the LRT track construction works were going on outside the mall, refurbishment works — including on the lift system, flooring and escalator — were being conducted inside the mall, says MC chairman and AmFIRST deputy CEO Zuhairy Md Isa.

“Some tenants left the mall during the LRT construction period. And with the refurbishment, we managed to change certain tenants. Retailers like HomePro came in upon the completion of the refurbishment. We also upgraded the cinema and relocated some tenants to other parts of the mall,” says Zuhairy.

Just as things began to look promising with the completion of the LRT construction works and further facelift of the mall, the pandemic landed and presented another challenge to the mall. Property manager RCMC Sdn Bhd came into the picture in 2020 to continue with the upgrading works of the mall.

RCMC director Richard Chan says the mall will continue to see changes — he believes that “the only constant is change” — to keep it relevant in an ever-changing society. While upgrading an old building requires a lot of money, he notes that the priority will always be on safety, security and health.

“The older the building, the higher the maintenance cost and the higher the replacement cost as well. Even though we have spent a lot of money on the refurbishment, what we have done [mostly] is something you cannot see. The refurbishment works earlier involved new escalators and lifts but it did not involve all the lifts and escalators. So, when we came in, our emphasis was to focus on these things,” he says.

“Many people said the MCO (Movement Control Order) was a bad time but it was the opposite [for us]. It was a blessing in disguise because not many people were around the mall during that period, so we could do a lot more things. We made a lot of changes, rectified a lot of areas [including getting rid of] mould, which was a serious issue. The main thing was looking for the cause of it and we realised that the mould was there because it was too cold and that condensation was the problem. So, we rectified the air-conditioning system and repainted the affected areas. We actually ended up saving money because we saved on the electricity bill after we increased the air-conditioning temperature.”

Another safety issue it has tackled is obtaining a fire certificate, while at the same time rectifying fire-fighting-related issues that were not working. It has also improved its CCTV system and now all its CCTV cameras are working.

While the mall was undergoing refurbishment and upgrading works during the pandemic, it also saw cost savings during the MCO when non-essential shops were not allowed to open, resulting in savings on air-conditioning and electricity costs.

Zuhairy notes that from the cost-saving efforts, the mall had a surplus of RM6 million, of which RM4 million has been given back to the lot owners in the form of service charge waivers. That has helped them weather the tough pandemic period.

Chan says the surplus is also the result of a 98% service charge collection rate. Tenants were given a one-month service charge waiver in 2021 and two months in 2022.

As the country transitions to the endemic phase, The Summit Subang USJ is gearing towards attracting back the crowd. Zuhairy says the mall has been positioned as a community neighbourhood mall.

“What I mean by being a community neighbourhood mall is that we are not a high-end mall that brings in luxury brands. We encourage and we also work closely with the community, the council and people representatives to hold community events here. The events we do include blood donation drives and charity events.”

For example, the mall brings in a Zumba instructor and pays her an allowance for a weekly free-for-public Zumba session at the mall. The session has since attracted about 40 people each week.

There is an international school inside the mall, and when the school organises its competitions in the mall, it also helps bring in the crowd.

“And, of course, we work closely with MBSJ (Subang Jaya City Council) for free community events here … We do selective events to cater for our target audience and we are not competing with the malls nearby. We have a few community shops and we cater for the lower-income group. We don’t look down on them because they also need to survive and these are the community things we do. We also invite them to community events like, for example, we pay them to make cookies for the events we hold,” says Chan.

Both the MC and property manager admit that it has not been an easy task handling a strata mall due to the individual ownership of the lots within the mall. Chan says the management cannot control the type of tenants the owners want to rent their units to, but it will try to work with them.

“[Most] owners only think of themselves and not the overall [mall situation]. For example, some owners want to rent their units to F&B operators but we disagree because there is no exhaust in the units. [Fortunately,] there are laws and regulations from the council … as they need to get approval from the council for the lot renovation. There are [by-laws] to control them. We don’t report them but we try to talk to them and tell them about the good practice,” he says.

Zuhairy agrees, adding that the MC and management will talk to the lot owners to inform them of the preferred zoning at certain parts of the mall. “But The Summit before and now is very different. Those days, activities related to illegal DVDs were rampant but that is no longer the case. One of the roles of the property manager and MC is to eliminate all these unwanted activities. We want to make it a community neighbourhood mall, so we want the shoppers — especially young children and seniors — to feel comfortable and safe here. A strata mall is not easy to manage but we want to make sure the mall continues to develop; even though we don’t want to and cannot spend too much, we do the best we can.”

Another issue is that as some lots are owner-occupied, the owners-cum-operators can choose to open and close their shops at any time they want to. This is a disadvantage compared to the single-owner shopping malls nearby.

Chan notes that the important element when it comes to maintenance is the equipment. While all the CCTV cameras in the mall are working, it plans to upgrade over 100 of them to offer sharper images.

The mall also plans to replace the water-cooled package unit (WCPU) system. Chan explains that not only does the current WCPU inside the mall incur a higher maintenance fee, it also has a shorter lifespan.

“We cannot even find the parts [for replacement now], and the consumption is also very high. It is worthwhile for the management to fork out the money to replace the system even though it is not cheap. The cost is about RM6 million. But we estimate the electricity cost savings from this system to be as high as RM100,000 a month. It is good in the long term,” he explains.

Zuhairy says it is important to explain to the owners the importance of replacing the WCPU, and that the management is working innovatively to fund it over a certain number of years.

The Summit Subang USJ is also anticipating the opening of an indoor theme park, known as Fun X World, this month, he says.

“We are waiting for the necessary approval and licence to operate. It is a theme park where the children, community and parents can come. The kids can come and play, while the parents can have their social gathering. It is over 50,000 sq ft. It is pending the licence from the council and hopefully we can open it in August. This could be an anchor that brings in the crowd,” he adds.

Zuhairy reckons that the success of the mall is due to the same vision the management has had, despite the different MCs over the years. “What we are doing today will be continued tomorrow. We cannot get 100% people in agreement but we go according to the law. The MC and property manager will not stop there but we are here to serve the owners and the community while bringing in more retailers.”

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play.