Provogue to develop 3 mn sq ft retail space

Focuses on Aurangabad, Mysore and Thane.

Prozone, the mall management company of Provogue India, will be developing three million sqaure feet of retail space in Aurangabad, Mysore and Thane.

Nikhil Chaturvedi, managing director, Provogue, said, "We will be developing these properties with the land owners and will be setting up malls in each of these locations which will be ready by 2008."

Hypercity, the hypermarket promoted by Shoppers' Stop and the K Raheja group, will be one of the key tenants in the malls as will be Shoppers' Stop.

Some of the other major would-be occupants include Fame, Globus, Westside and Spaces, apart from other brands like Nike and, of course, Provogue.

Sizes of the malls will range from 8,00,000 sq ft in Aurangabad to 1.5 million sq ft in Thane. The company will also provide mall management services and is in talks with a couple of foreign players which are present in this category.

Besides, Provogue is also looking at doubling its retail space from the existing 40,000 sq ft to about 80,000 sq ft by the end of the year.

This will be done through 45 standalone brand stores. Akhil Chaturvedi, director, Provogue India, said, expansion apart, the company would continue to explore the shop-in-shop model through departmental stores and multi-brand outlets.

"Apart from expanding retail presence, we are also looking at increasing our product width," he said.

The company has identified innerwear and personal care products as categories it intends to have a presence in, and Chaturvedi said it would be launching these categories in the next financial year, adding that the company is working on its product range in these categories.

This comes after the company, largely a men's wear brand, forayed into women's wear and then men's footwear last year.