Liberty Plaza Owner Mulls Major Undertaking To Expand And Upscale Shopping Mall

The owner of Sri Lanka’s first and oldest shopping mall, Liberty Plaza, mulls on a major undertaking to expand and upscale the shopping mall to face the growing competition emerging from new and upcoming modern malls in Colombo.

“My attention is also focused on further developing and upscaling Liberty Plaza. The retail sector has been negatively impacted by external circumstances in play coupled with competition from more modern malls. Our intention is to keep Liberty Plaza, which sits in a prime location, relevant,” Colombo Land & Development Company (CLND) PLC and Urban Development Authority (UDA), Chairman, Harshan De Silva told shareholders of the company in its recent annual report.

The occupancy level of the mall last year dropped to 73 percent from 80 percent in 2019 due to the pandemic.

Singaporean businessman Ng Eng Ghee developed the Liberty Plaza making it the first ever-shopping mall of international standards in the country in early 1980’s under the newly established public-private partnership entity CLND.

After three decades, Liberty Plaza got a facelift increasing the overall retail space area of the mall by 30,000 square feet to over 136,348 square feet with the addition of the Liberty Arcade with an estimated investment of Rs.960 million.

“Going ahead, we will have to look at transforming a large-scale development, which can be linked to an adjacent block and enhanced,” De Silva said.