Who's the biggest of them all?

REAL ESTATE: DLF, Unitech, Emaar-MGF and the Ambience Group are in race to build the largest mall.

Delhi and its suburbs are witnessing a race without a finishing line "" the rush to build India's largest shopping mall. The players are the top names in the real estate business "" DLF, Unitech and Emaar-MGF.

Till recently, Unitech's Great India Place at Noida had eclipsed all other shopping malls in the National Capital Region with 1.5 million sq ft of space. (It was India's first million sq ft mall.)

Then Ambience Group's Ambi Mall came up at Gurgaon, boasting of a 1.8 million sq ft spread and no less than a kilometre long end-to-end walk within. But its days of glory too will not last. Come 2010, DLF will have its 4.5 million sq ft Mall of India next to the Ambi Mall, while Emaar MGF reportedly has a 5.8 sq ft mall on the anvil, replicating its Dubai Mall.

Is it megalomania? Or is it a start business move to drive away competition? A bit of both, say experts.

"India is seeing a burst of mall activity, going from none to many. They have to differentiate themselves. At this early stage in the evolution of the Indian mall, the differentiator is size," says Asitava Sen, vice-president (retail and consumer goods), KSA Technopak.

"The first mover's advantage helps in getting the right tenants as well as defining the alternative destination in the customer's mind," adds Arvind Nair, managing director of DLF Retail.

These developers are gunning for scale as the differentiator for it allows them to create malls which are destinations for more than shopping, throwing a wide net across consumer segments and locations.

DLF Group Executive Director Rajeev Talwar says: "We are going across the board to cater to the entire family. We will include the bargain-drivers as also the high street in the Mall of India. To tap India's GDP growth story, with rising incomes and very little time, we want to offer a large range under the same roof."

Yet, scale can claim its price too. Sen says, "Building malls pegged on sheer size could be counter-productive. The demand and supply gap has to be ascertained using a competitive analysis of the catchment area."

This is needed to get retailers to open shop in the malls. With at least 50,000 footfalls needed for success in such malls, the count of over 200 shops have to be filled in a planned manner.

Raj Singh Gehlot, chairman and managing director, Ambience Group, notes that until FDI in retail opens up it will remain a tough call.

Cleverly demarcated zones are coming to these developers' rescue to bring in the existing retailers to their malls. These are the key to sustain the mixed-bag of brands "" spanning different price categories and market segments.

For example, Ambi Mall has a separate entrance for Big Bazaar, away from the up-market Debenhams, avoiding a clash. The GIP too has home-ware and groceries in the basement and women's and men's apparel flanking the two sides of the mall's ground floor.

Talwar explains DLF's stance, "We are trying to order the large variety into themes, creating distinct shopping experiences for all our buyers."

Mall of India will have a zone marked out for women's clothing, followed by accessories, while mass retail outlets would be separate from the premium zone.

Gehlot also rues how the city planning lacks foresight for malls of this scale. Talwar says, "The government has to fix the access to Gurgaon" while referring to the expected increase in city traffic to Mall of India.

But it has not daunted them from sprucing up their own infrastructure to transform their gigantic real estates into entertainment meccas.

Pani says, "For a mall to be sustainable, it has get into different categories ranging from entertainment, food to novelty retailing."

So while Ambi Mall has a food court that is more than 50,000 sq ft, Unitech's Great India Place (GIP) already has an adjoining amusement park "" the World of Wonders "" with an Adlabs multiplex and even a hotel lined up. Mall of India will have an entire cultural centre, complete with amphitheatres, multiplexes, kids zone and of course food parks.

While there is ample elbow-room and more within "" the Ambi Mall has a one km walkway and all of these malls are interspersed with plenty of seating and atriums "" parking woes too are being put to rest with spaces that can fit in more than 8,000 cars (Great India Place).

This might help mend the yawning gap: the Mall of America has 5.3 parking spaces per 1,000 sq ft while Indian malls have as low as 1.6 parking spaces per 1,000 sq ft, till recently. For transit, GIP and Mall of India have plans to whisk you away on a mono-rail or light rail from the nearest Metro station.

While India's largest mall may remain the ultimate trophy, no less than 20 malls are coming up across India that stretch to more than a million sq ft. And, not just the national capital region but Mumbai, Bangalore and even Ludhiana will soon flaunt these giants. These players are, at least, all winners in introducing "destination malls" in our vocabulary.