The third piece of the puzzle: Bangkok’s newest mall wows

Finally, it’s open, two years behind schedule because of Covid, and it is a fascinating study in the evolution of the vertical mall in Asia.

Emsphere is the long-awaited third piece of the Em District mall cluster in Bangkok’s Phrom Phong neighborhood just east of the downtown — the first was Emporium opened in 1997 and the second was Emquartier opened in 2015 — and like its predecessors Em Sphere doesn’t lack for ambition.

The new mall which took its bow on December 1, has six levels that could properly be called retail, food and beverage, and several more levels for parking and event space. The ground level is taken up in its entirety by a bustling modern food court with a dazzling array of small casual eateries and ‘white tablecloth’ restaurants, as is the mezzanine level above it that is connected to the BTS Sky Train, a major public transport hub.

It’s on these two levels where much of the experiential energy is, and maybe it is their intense vibrancy that raises expectations too high for the rest of the center. Even so, The Mall Group, owner and operator of the center and its two older siblings, has done a fine job of creating a mall that will attract both tourists and locals, which has an independent viewpoint and is outside of the downtown area.

Who anchors this place anyway?

Emsphere is also the latest illustration of how food and beverage has assumed the mantle previously worn by department stores as the mall anchor of choice. The place is packed. It does everything a mall owner wants an anchor to do to draw foot traffic and generate sales. It also avoids the trap of the well-hyped Iconsiam project at the other side of the Chao Phraya River, which attempted to replicate a traditional Thai food street that ended up looking at best gimmicky, at worst corny.

Unlike many other Asian vertical malls, the food and beverage at Emsphere is on the ground and mezzanine levels rather than on one of the upper levels, which will instead be occupied by a night-time entertainment precinct. A major reason that food courts are often placed at the top is so that customers are drawn up through the mall and are thus compelled to pass by the retail stores before they get their reward at the nosh pit. By having its star attraction down low, the fall-off in energy above the mezzanine level at Emsphere is palpable. It is like the air coming out of a balloon and is particularly acute because of the warehouse-like interior design, more reminiscent of a Costco than an upscale shopping mall.

To be sure, the gastronomic shock and awe isn’t the only big drawcard of the center: Ikea, which occupies Level 3 is the Swedish home furnishings retailer’s fourth unit in Thailand. (The others are in Bangyai and Bangna, in northwest and southeast Bangkok respectively, and in Phuket.) And the entertainment precinct at the top of the center adds a point of difference.

The problem that the Em Sphere creators had was how to make the filling in the sandwich between the restaurants and the Ikea ( that is, levels 1 and 2) as compelling as the bread. Their efforts have been
okay in some respects but not entirely convincing. They include a large area, Pop Store, devoted to discounted fashion labels (Painkiller, Freak, Ecco, among others) a Club 21 Lab for designer fashion, a funky Frank! Garcon lifestyle shop seems to draw inspiration from Urban Outfitters, a large Foot Locker, and M Contemporary, an art exhibition space.

A trifecta with three distinct angles

The Mall Group is, along with Siam Piwat and Central Pattana, one of the Big 3 of Thai retail mall development. While Central Pattana has a truly national footprint of 55 malls, The Mall Group and Siam Piwat are concentrated in the Bangkok metro area. All three companies have justly famous vertical retail projects attached to important transport hubs. Collectively, they provide the main real estate platforms for all international retailers wanting a beachhead in Thailand.

For the Mall Group, its Em District is a signature trifecta of projects that each offers a different retail viewpoint: Emporium, the first of the three to be opened more than 25 years ago, is a distinctly high-end designer mall, while the second, EmQuartier attracts a more middle-market shopper with popular global brands.

Emsphere, with its stronger focus on food and beverage and its dabbling in art, has a shot at attracting a wide variety of visitors. The art bit is risky though and the M Contemporary exhibit was quiet: these kinds of mall installations are hyped but have a checkered track record, as in New World’s K11 art malls in China that have never really set the world alight.

Authenticity at risk?

The Thai economy is highly dependent on tourism, and The Mall Group’s chairwoman, Supaluk Umpujh,
is keen to help. She favors projects that create ‘sleepless’ entertainment districts and was recently quoted as saying she wants Phrong Phong and the area to the west, known as the ‘Sukhumvit’ area after the main street that runs through the center of it, to be like South Pattaya. This might raise some eyebrows given that South Pattaya is famous mainly as a seedy tourist ghetto that headlines the Thai sex industry.

More grandly, she wants Bangkok to be compared to Las Vegas, Dubai, Seoul, and perhaps more alarmingly, Bali, although it isn’t clear what any of these cities have to do with each other culturally. However, this kind of florid rhetoric is common among Thai retail developers and reflects their elevated status as visionaries and nation-builders.

In any event, creating a major shopping and entertainment hub is a ship that has already sailed: Bangkok is already the world’s most visited city and both its public infrastructure and hospitality industry are likely to start creaking again as the number of incoming tourists finally normalises, possibly in 2024.

In order to make Supaluk’s vision a reality, more of the older, authentically Thai parts of the city will need to be torn up and redeveloped. It would be an unfortunate message to get out that Thailand has a soul to sell. From a retail standpoint, it is already star-studded and has nothing to prove.

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