This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 17, 2023 - July 23, 2023

Sitting on prime land in the city’s Golden Triangle and opened in 1977, the iconic Sungei Wang Plaza is one of the earliest shopping centres to be built in Kuala Lumpur, and one of the longest-running malls in the country.

A playground for many in its heyday, Sungei Wang — which translates into “river of gold” — has been synonymous with fashion, beauty and food since the late 1970s and 1980s, and even housed entertainment and recreation facilities such as an Olympic-size ice skating rink, bumper cars, a game arcade, a discotheque and a cinema that could accommodate up to 1,700 people. It was also the venue for fashion shows, beauty contests, artist meet-and-greets, festive countdowns and Chinese opera performances on its rooftop.

Comprising 1.2 million sq ft of retail space over eight levels, as well as three basements and two elevated parking levels with 1,294 bays, the mall has in its 46 years of operation undergone three phases of major refurbishment under its asset enhancement initiative.

The first phase, which took place in 1992, saw the refurbishment of the retail floors. In the second phase in late 2012, the façade and ceilings were repainted, the floors retiled, lift lobbies upgraded and new and improved signage was installed.

Subsequently, for the third phase of refurbishment, anew 132m covered walkway was built along the mall’s frontage in Jalan Sultan Ismail, linking the mall to the Bukit Bintang monorail station and Jalan Imbi.

The fourth and latest phase of refurbishment was initiated in 2017, in conjunction with the mall’s 40th anniversary. The mall embarked on a rebranding exercise to reevaluate and conceptualise how the space could be used to enhance the visitor experience. From its redesigned logo, the mall’s atrium also got a new look in 2019 as well as a new entrance, Pelangi Entrance in Jalan Bulan 2, to ease accessibility for shoppers in Bukit Bintang. In 2022, Sungei Wang Plaza unveiled its new gold façade and new positioning as a beauty and experiential mall, offering differentiated retail and experiential activities.

Sungei Wang Plaza’s key anchor tenants include indoor drift kart Blastacars Malaysia; Camp5 climbing gym; JUMPA by Capitaland, which occupies about one-third of the retail space and offers retail, food and beverage and family entertainment; Giant supermarket; MinNature Malaysia miniature heritage gallery; Mr DIY; and the 18,000 sq ft Mega Star Arena.

“We think the mall’s rebranding and refurbishment have improved the overall image and desirability of the property. It has also given our existing tenants more confidence and drawn in new tenants,” says Sungei Wang Plaza Management Corporation centre manager Joseph Teo, who oversees all the departments under the Management Corporation (MC). The MC appointed Knight Frank Property Management Sdn Bhd (KFPM) as the property manager in 2015.

Sungei Wang Plaza is the recipient of the bronze award at The Edge Malaysia Best Managed & Sustainable Property Awards 2023 under the 10 Years and Above — Strata Retail category.

According to Sungei Wang Plaza Management Corporation’s previous chairman Ng Yih Chen, the leasing direction of the mall had to change for it to stand the test of time. “The current retail industry [landscape] is that almost every residential area or suburb has its own mall, which means that the family crowd is less likely to come to the city centre for their daily needs. So we felt that we needed different content.

“And over the decades, the profile of shoppers has changed. There was a time when the toy businesses were paying the highest psf rental in Sungei Wang, and there was a time when F&B outlets were paying the highest. So even though we still have a lot of old-timers here, there has been a lot of turnover. The difference between the first 30 years and the last 10 years was the [tenant turnover rate]. Previously, the turnover was fast and you didn’t see the emptiness. But in the last 10 years, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, we lost quite a big chunk, about 20%, of the tenants.”

Sungei Wang Plaza hit its lowest occupancy rate during the Covid-19 pandemic at around 65%. “It was probably the lowest in Sungei Wang’s 46-year history,” Ng says. “But, because of the resilience of this location, we have recovered and right now we are about 80% [occupied]. We are confident that the mall occupancy will grow above 80% within this year.” He adds that foot traffic at Sungei Wang Plaza has now gone above 2019 or pre-Covid levels atover 1.3 millionvisitors monthly.

Ng goes on to explain why beauty and experiential offerings would be Sungei Wang Plaza’s niche. “One of the trades that has continued to survive over the decades, and has actually grown in Sungei Wang, is the beauty industry. I think we have the largest concentration of beauty [shops and services] in Malaysia and one of the best in terms of pricing, which brings us a steady stream of regular customers. The stable footfall is a plus point for us.

“While we have to do our best to maintain whatever has survived or thrived here, as that is our strength, for us to remain relevant going forward, we need uniqueness and to have our own niche. This is why, six years ago, we identified that we should be looking at a more experiential kind of trade mix.

“And being in the city centre, we do have a different target market. We’re not just relying on the residential crowd but also expats, tourists and travellers. We needed a trade mix that also caters for them,” Ng says.

He adds that the Mega Star Arena has been one of Sungei Wang Plaza’s main crowd pullers, in addition to an event space on the sixth floor. “We are quite fortunate to have Mega Star. And on the sixth floor event space, there are quite a few operators doing events there, which draw a couple of thousand people per event. And when we have events at both the concert hall and the event space, we have a crowd of more than 7,000.

“And this has become a new challenge for us because we have to deal with the traffic dispersal in the mall and surroundings. This is something we are working on.”

The Mega Star Arena at Sungei Wang Plaza, which can fit up to 5,000 people, has hosted many events over the past few months, including concerts by K-pop idol Lee Seung Gi and Malaysian songbird Datuk Seri Siti Nurhaliza. As for the event space, it has hosted live shows like Ben Nicky as well as fan club events.

“We do get a very good mix of crowds. Based on feedback from merchants, such events don’t just bring in the event crowd but also spread awareness to a lot of people who have not been back to Sungei Wang in the past 10 to 30 years and to the youngsters who did not know Sungei Wang exists,” says Ng.

“I would say timing is very much in our favour because we have completed our renovations of the interiors. So when people come, we get a lot more positive comments. We believe this impact will bring in recurring crowds in the future, and this is something the merchants here are very positive about.

“And having experiential tenants like that, I would say we are very much on track with what we have planned, and we are moving in the right direction.”

To move towards its new positioning, Sungei Wang Plaza has its own leasing team on hand to assist owners and tenants. “Previously, most owners didn’t need help; property agents didn’t have a chance to do their leasing here because most owners had merchants queuing up. But over the last 10 years, things have changed a lot. So we started this initiative and communicated with the merchants and owners, to the extent of doing town hall sessions with them to explain the current retail scene.

“We have also come up with a guideline based on the floor plan to recommend to the owners. We even bring in potential tenants and try to rearrange the trade mix according to our guidelines, but we can’t ultimately dictate because we are not single ownership. Nonetheless, we are under one big umbrella, whereby if the mall does well, everyone does well, and if the mall doesn’t do well, the chances of tenants doing well are really not there.”

When it comes to the challenges of maintaining a four-decade-old property, one of them is replacing the hardware. “We have spent a lot of money, and we are not totally done yet. It’s a gradual process. We have set a timeline to complete this within the next five years. Much of the hardware [in this building] has lasted since the first day. It’s not that they are not functional, but there are no more spare parts. We started gradually changing our escalators and lifts about five years ago … as well as things like lighting, chillers and central air conditioning.”

Ng says that despite needing to spend the money to phase out the old hardware in the building, the MC has given back rebates to the strata mall owners on their service charge. “We have not asked a sen from the owners to do all this. At the same time, they have been getting rebates on their service charge; we started this during the Covid-19 pandemic because they were all suffering from the lower rental income. Even though we are in the recovery stage this year, we are still giving rebates.”

Despite its age, Sungei Wang Plaza has been fitted out with a number of features for energy efficiency and indoor air quality.

One is an electrical prepaid system (EPS), says KFPM executive director Winnie Lim. “In 2019, Sungei Wang Plaza carried out an electrical metre migration to an EPS to enable users to track their usage and manage their expenses better. Each shoplot will have its own individual EPS metre, which can monitor monthly electrical consumption, credit balance, recharge history, live update of present load, energy bill reading and sanction load, and energy trend through an app. We have achieved the zero arrears target for electricity distribution to all tenants.

“The mall is also equipped with an off-peak tariff rider, which gives a 20% discount on electricity usage during off-peak hours. We also have implemented an energy savings project for the LED lighting and air-conditioning systems, which have helped us save more than 10% of our electricity consumption daily.”

Ng believes that Sungei Wang Plaza’s new positioning will take it through the next 10 years. “After that, it again depends on how well we adapt to the new environment because consumer behaviour keeps changing. There is still room to grow in terms of our experiential offering, but I believe that as we move on and strengthen, things can only get better.”

Sungei Wang will continue to benefit from its differentiated offerings, he adds. “We are not your regular neighbourhood mall, so the trade mix and visitors here are very diverse. For example, if you buy a shirt here that doesn’t fit, you can get it tailored. There are supporting trades here and a circular economy, which you don’t typically see in most other malls because it may be too expensive for some of these trades to survive.”

Meanwhile, location will continue to be a boon for Sungei Wang. “We’re not just in the city; we’re in the heart of the golden triangle,” Ng says. “This means we can cater for all walks of life as we [are near] all kinds of accommodation ranging from two to five stars. And traditionally and up to today, Sungei Wang is known for its affordability.”

MC chairman Andy Cheng concludes: “We do have other strata malls in the country, but in terms of the kind of culture we have here, I think we are the one and only.”

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