New retail frontier unveiled for brands targeting young adults

Our Convergence Bureau
11 December 2002

What makes the retail space unique is the fact that the space being offered is part of what will be Mumbai’s first, truly integrated ‘young-adult entertainment centre,’ Fun Republic. Young adults as a segment do not currently have any integrated entertainment venues dedicatedly targeted towards their lifestyle and Fun Republic, Andheri, is set to fill this much-felt vacuum when it opens in the next 12-16 weeks.

Fun Republic is spread over a total area of 1,85,000 square feet and will have a four-screen state-of-the-art cinema multiplex with 1,300 seats, a food court, a huge shopping area and parking facilities for 650 cars. The top two floors of the Fun Republic complex will house an exclusive, membership-only, lifestyle zone aptly branded as Experia.

Experia will have Reviva (a fitness zone), Positivity will be the personality zone, five-concept lounges called El Dorado, Starz (a fine dining restaurant with a bar), Federal Bureau of Intoxication (FBI) (a cluster of bars and dance floors), Matrix (a studio area), Cacophonyx (a collection of games) and Fortune Zone, which has games of chance.

This integration promises to make it an attractive proposition for retail entrepreneurs and shoppers alike. The most compelling attraction for prospective retailers is the fact that they are guaranteed a huge captive audience of young adults who will visit the complex to partake the varied and integrated leisure facilities as they are all housed under one roof.

The estimated annual traffic to Fun Republic, Andheri, as a whole is in the region of 3 million people annually. The socio-economic profile of the target customers is likely to be SEC A&B hence retailers are assured a captive audience, which has adequate disposable income.

The second compelling reason for prospective retailers is the fact that this retail space is not being offered by a typical real estate developer but rather by an established, marketing-oriented, entertainment service provider with a national presence.