Greenfield Reliance Mart

The total area is 4 lakh sq ft. It will house cinemas, restaurants, shopping complexes, besides parking lots, and play area for children.

The mega Reliance Greenfield Mall, the work of which is fast progressing at Five Roads Junction in the of the city, will be a ‘town within a town,’ according to officials at the construction site.’ It is expected to dwarf many malls now existing in in Salem, Madurai, Trichy, and Coimbatore.

Reliance’s mall, modelled on B2B (business to business) concepts will have wholesale warehouse, retail shops, branded fast foods, hyper market, coffee shops, food courts, entertainment centre, cinemas, pubs, health clubs, among others. The city already boasts of a chain of Reliance Fresh outlets.

Promoted by Reliance Prolific Traders Private Limited, the mall, is a part of the ambitious expansion plan of Reliance Retail. It plans to invest Rs. 2,000 crore to add 3 million sq ft retail space in the coming years. Reliance Retail operates 1,150 stores in 86 cities across 14 states in about 4.5 million sq ft of space.

“Every year we add space. Reliance is promoting 30 hypermarkets and 250 specialty stores. Around 1.5 million sq ft of space will be added through hypermarkets while another 1.5 million sq ft will be realized through specialty stores and Reliance Fresh,” sources said. The construction of the mall is expected to be over by July 2013.

With the retail market valued at $ 450 billion, the investment on malls and hypermarkets can go up in the next five to seven years, say retail watchers.