When in a mall's lifecycle should refurbishments be done?

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Another reason to consider a refurbishment is Reilly's Law of Retail Gravitation, which suggests that customers are willing to travel longer distances to larger retail centres given the higher attraction they present to customers.

Moses Mushirivindi, an authority on mall refurbishments, agrees with all the above-mentioned reasoning. Speaking at the eighth annual South African Council of Shopping Centres (SACSC) Research Conference on 9 May, Mushirivindi will be sharing his invaluable case study regarding the optimal time and stage in a mall’s lifecycle when refurbishments must be done.

Timing dependent on mall performance

“It was established that the timing of a revamp or refurbishment is dependent on the performance of the shopping centre which is mainly deduced from; property net income trends, tenant turnover trends, foot traffic trends, vacancies and time it takes to fill up vacancies. This will lead to a determination of the lifecycle stage of the centre. The research established that management must plan a refurbishment at the maturity stage of the centre's lifecycle. This is when there is a large number of shopping centres of the same type coupled with sharp competition and declining sales growth. It is important to therefore understand the stages of the lifecycle in order to plan refurbishment,” he said.

Mushirivindi added that the motive for refurbishment must be established as well, which then indicates which aspect of the centre should be refurbished first. “Refurbishment can be undertaken to cure physical obsolescence, functional obsolescence and the order of works is dependent on the aspects requiring refurbishment,” he said.

Mushirivindi was born in Zimbabwe where he obtained his B.Com Honours Degree in Management and a Graduate Diploma in Marketing. In 2015 he was awarded the MidCity Properties Award for Best Student in Property Management. Upon arriving in South Africa, he enrolled for an MSc in Real Estate with the University of Pretoria which he completed in 2016 and graduated in 2017. He achieved a distinction in his research titled, Optimum refurbishment time for shopping centres, under the tutelage of Dr Dirk Prinsloo and Professor Chris Cloete.

Commenting on Mushirivindi’s research, University of Pretoria’s Professor Cloete, who is also the SACSC chairman of Shopping Centre Studies, said that there has been a number of MSc mini-dissertations on shopping centre topics that had been completed over the past two years.

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Wide range of research topics

“The founding of the Shopping Centre Studies at the University of Pretoria in 2017 was a milestone in university education and research in South Africa. It served as a stimulus for a number of research projects by postgraduate students. The characteristics of shopping centres as complex systems, and the divergent and important role it fulfils in modern society, are being investigated in a wide range of research topics in the Department of Construction Economics. A number of research papers have also emanated from postgraduate research on shopping centres. These outputs contribute to the increasing recognition of the SACSC/University of Pretoria initiative as the major focus of shopping centre research in South Africa and indeed in Africa,” he said.

Chief executive officer for the SACSC Amanda Stops said that Moses Mushirivindi is just one of the many speakers at the 2018 SACSC Research Conference who will bring many important retail and shopping centre insights to light. “We look forward to showcasing Moses, along with our other speakers to delegates next month, it is going to be an enlightening session for all,” she said.