The Accra Mall: Where Accra meets
The Accra mall is one of Accra’s biggest business landmarks as well as its busiest . It is where Accra meets.
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Every day, thousands of Ghanaians congregate at this edifice to do business, shop, entertain friends and meet visitors.
The thousands of vehicles that park there everyday attest to the draw of the place.
It is a place for lovers, and the place to go. Various banks are located there to take advantage of the large crowd that throng there.
It is the biggest store or mall in Ghana, and has hundreds of stores, offices and banks as well as a five-screen cinema theatre complex operated by Silverbird.
It offers the concept of one stop shopping. More than 135,000 people troop to the edifice every week with the peak being reached during the weekends and holidays
It is located at the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange and the Spintex road. It is five minutes away from the Kotoka International Airport. The mall was inaugurated on July 4, 2008. Two South African retail giants are the biggest operators.
These are Shoprite, which deals in household items and Mr Price, a clothing and accessories retailer. Its planners envisaged it to be retail, leisure, entertainment, fashion, banking, dining and a healthcare facility, and it has succeeded in a style and scale never experienced in Ghana before.
The Accra Mall is conveniently located and provides access for residents of Accra and surrounding residential and commercial areas.
The pioneering retail venture which took 20-months to build is the brainchild of Mr Joseph Owusu-Akyaw, a retired career banker and retail development expert. The fully air-conditioned shopping centre has 20,000 square metres of retail space, with parking for over 900 cars.
Last Saturday, the mall seemed to burst at its seams The traffic jam was terrible and customers had difficulty in parking.
Accra Mall, is owned by the Pretoria-based Atterbury Property Group after its former owners, private equity group Actis had offloaded their shares in it
According to Actis Head of Real Estate David Morley, "The development of the Accra Mall came at a time when Ghanaians still sourced even basic goods from London and Johannesburg. Now they can buy products locally with pride."
Louis van der Watt, Chief Executive Officer of Atterbury, says the mall's occupancy is running at 100 per cent.