Marcopolis presents the Saudi Arabia Report focused on the investments, doing business, economy and other topics featuring interviews with key executives. The sectors under review in this issue are industry, real-estate, ICT, investments, banking sector, telecom sector and many more.
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Ahmad Ibrahim Bin Saedan is GM for Real Estate Development at Al Saedan Real Estate.
Al Saedan Real Estate also has some other small developments that are scattered around Riyadh. We have two developments in Othman Ibn Road Street, one development in Abu Baker Alsiddek road, and these developments are shop malls that are between 2,000 and 5,000m2. We also have a mall in King Salman road and a development on Exit 6 of the North Ring Road of Riyadh.
There is a lot of demand for retail space in the commercial centres There are 200,000 GLAs. There is a shortage in the market of almost 1 million GLAs in the next 5 years. Saudi Arabian market will have more shopping centres in the coming years.
The demographics here are changing; Riyadh has lots of little towns nearby and usually at the weekend many people from these towns come to visit Riyadh. Five or ten years ago if you went to a residential district you would find very small shops for groceries or you would have minimarkets but now this is changing and people want to go to a mall whether it is an outdoor mall or an air-conditioned mall. They like to go with their families and children and spend a day or an afternoon in the mall shopping and buying what they need for the week.
Ahmad Ibrahim Bin Saedan, GM for Real Estate Development at Al Saedan Real Estate talks about strip malls in Riyadh.