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

IOI City Mall has become a landmark in the southern corridor of the Klang Valley. Not only is it the new commercial, entertainment and lifestyle heartbeat of the area, the 2.5 million sq ft shopping mall is also the biggest retail mall in Malaysia so far.

However, being the biggest is not the objective of the builder, operator and facility manager, IOI Properties Group Bhd. The vision for IOI City Mall has always been to redefine it by benchmarking it against regional mall standards in terms of operational efficiency, sustainability and integration.

“The first phase of IOI City Mall opened in September 2014, followed by the second phase seven years later, bringing the total net lettable area to 2.5 million sq ft and making it the biggest shopping mall in Malaysia. Construction on Phase 3 will start by the end of next year and is slated for completion by 2029. Upon its completion, we could possibly be one of the biggest in Southeast Asia,” IOI Properties chief operating officer of property investment (Malaysia) Chris Chong tells City & Country.

IOI City Mall is the Gold winner in the Below 10 Years — Non-strata Retail category in The Edge Malaysia Best Managed & Sustainable Property Awards 2023.

The GBI-certified mall is located within IOI Resort City in Putrajaya, Selangor, and is easily accessible via major highways and public transport. It is a 30-minute drive from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, making it an attractive retail and entertainment hub. The mall is currently occupied by more than 700 tenants, including trendy fashion brands, two major supermarkets, cineplexes, and food and beverage outlets offering local and international dining experiences.

Designed with integration in mind, IOI City Mall is more than just retail. Attractions include IOI City Farm, an 18,000 sq ft indoor edutainment exhibition space that provides family-friendly activities to learn about plants and animals; IOI Sports Centre, the only world-class sports facility of its kind in the vicinity of Putrajaya, with a total of 15 badminton courts and two covered futsal arenas; an Olympic-size ice-skating rink; a 52,000 sq ft adventure park; and a Proton Premium Outlet with an after-sales car service centre.

“Shopping malls are evolving. It is a very competitive industry; hence, we need to be innovative and, most importantly, outdo ourselves,” says Chong.

IOI Properties is also the operator of two successful retail malls, namely IOI Mall Puchong in Selangor, which started operating in 1996, and IOI Mall Kulai in Johor, which opened in 2001.

“We want [IOI City Mall] to move away from the traditional impression of a shopping mall that is only meant for shopping. We want it to be a happy destination for everyone, so there is something for everyone. For younger kids, we have the indoor farm; for children, we have a sports centre; for teenagers, we have Malaysia’s biggest ice rink and indoor adventure theme park; for fathers, we have Proton’s service centre,” he smiles. “So that the men can schedule their car service in the mall while their wives go shopping and kids go for entertainment.”

However, managing a wide range and diverse tenant mix under one roof is never an easy task, especially in fulfilling the special requirements of unusual mall tenants.

For example, as IOI City Farm is designed with an indoor farm concept to bring the outdoor experience indoors, it has special requirements on the environment space and temperature to ensure the comfort of the animals and plants. The edutainment exhibition consists of three zones for visitors to interact and observe more than 70 species of plants, farm and exotic animals as well as fish.

“We have the advantage as IOI Properties is also a developer and builder. We have expertise in design, architecture, engineering and so on to ensure our space meets the special requirements.

“In terms of day-to-day operations, maintenance and management, the responsibility does not fall so much on us but the tenants themselves. Our role is to provide external support to them, such as to ensure the safety of the mall, cleanliness in the common areas, brand building, efficient traffic control, building upkeep and upgrading works planning,” Chong shares.

When the first phase of IOI City Mall was opened in 2014, LED light fittings were not common in the market. Fast forward to the opening of the second phase in 2021, sustainbility and energy saving were the trend; hence, Phase 2 is 100% LED light fitted.

“Facility management is about long-term planning while [considering] many aspects, including budgeting. While we are committed to upgrading our light fittings [in Phase 1], we cannot throw away those old fittings that are still usable just to follow the trend because it is not environmentally friendly either; it defeats the purpose. What we did was upgrade [to LED light fittings] gradually starting two years ago, only when the lifespan of old light fittings ended. We are now 100% on LED light fittings,” Chong explains.

Meanwhile, in showing its commitment to sustainability, IOI Properties did not stop there. Some 8,910 pieces of photovoltaic solar panel modules have been installed on the rooftop of IOI City Mall in 2020/21. They produce a total of 3.5mw electricity power supply for the mall’s self-consumption, and an excess energy grid through the Net Energy Metering Scheme (NEM) under the NEM contract. Every month, the mall generates about 381mw for the whole mall, which covers 15% of the electricity consumption in the mall’s common area.

IOI City Mall is also built with two Thermal Energy Storage (TES) tanks, which have a total volume of 62,000 cu m, equivalent to 16.5 Olympic-size swimming pools, for more efficient use of energy by using chilled water while continuing to provide a desirable atmosphere for its customers. The chilled water is charged during off-peak hours at night and stored in the TES tanks to avoid maximum demand charges during peak hours.

“We are constantly enhancing the mall, be it on the hardware or software [side], because staying relevant is crucial in operating a well-received and socially responsible mall,” Chong says.

For example, he explains that while IOI City Mall was one of the first shopping malls in the region to have a “find a car park” indication system installed upon its opening in 2014, the operator has recently further enhanced it to a more efficient and integrated system.

“As we have more than 14,000 parking bays and a few parking zones, traffic flow and indication of available bays and mall direction are important. We have a KPI to not let our shoppers spend more than 15 minutes in the parking area or to look for their car. We are pleased to share that the target has been well-achieved so far,” Chong notes.

He attributes the achievement to the recently upgraded automated License Plate Recognition  system and car finder system. The car finder system helps shoppers locate their car simply by keying in the car plate number in a kiosk, which is connected to the security camera system in the car park.

“IOI City Mall is a mega mall and we understand the pain of looking for your car among the 14,000 parking bays. A kiosk allows customers to find their car by just keying in the car registration number [and] through image recognition technology via camera on-site,” Chong explains.

He adds that there is one camera for every three parking bays, serving more than just the purpose of finding a car. It also doubles as an additional security feature in the car park and to provide a hassle-free experience when visiting the mall.

“On top of that, more than half of our total security personnel are stationed in the car park and 10 entrances of the mall. They are placed there for security reasons, and at the same time to ensure smooth traffic flow, directing cars to the zone with more available car park bays,” he says.

Moving forward, in the third quarter of 2023, IOI City Mall will launch the revamped CLUB IOI app with a more user-friendly interface to provide a wholesome offline to online shopping experience.

One of the many highlights of the app is the flexible food delivery feature, where users can order food from different merchants in IOI City Mall under one delivery order.

“The idea came from how we could enhance the communication with tenants and help them generate higher income and widen their customer catchment. Of course they could engage third-party food delivery platforms [to do that] but most of them are mindful of the high commission charge. As IOI Properties already has an app, we realised that we could actually play the role, and offer an even more flexible feature such as ordering from different merchants under the same delivery bill, as well as pay the online ordering bill with points collected from shopping offline in IOI City Mall,” Chong notes.

He says it is a strategy of killing two birds with one stone — for one, it will help to enhance customer loyalty from the wholesome offline to online experience. Second, it will help the tenants’ business widen their customer coverage. Third, it will also increase tenants’ income in general as the commission cost is much lower compared with other third-party platforms.

“We are investing in [the food delivery feature in the app] not for commission-earning purposes, but to help our tenants secure more business and create better income. Hence, the charge is minimal compared with third-party platforms. We truly understand that IOI City Mall will continue to thrive and shine only when our tenants are doing well and our shoppers are happy,” Chong concludes.

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