It was the place that probably taught every Chennaiite born in the late 80’s and before, the word ‘mall’ – without confusing it with a hungry lion, at any rate! Over two decades ago when it opened its doors to the city’s populace, Spencer Plaza had the ability to attract visitors from the city and its suburbs.Three-phases, 1.068 million square feet and 700 shops, have sadly ceased to be all that impressive anymore, with four other major malls ruling the roost and drawing the crowds away. But the downward spiral of Spencer Plaza or just ‘Spencer’ as most people call it, isn’t one that has made its way into the history books yet. The mall was seeing its blaze of glory till about seven-eight years ago. “Spencer’s used to attract about 35,000-40,000 visitors during weekdays and about 55,000-60,000 during weekends, in those days. We had an additional 10-15,000 visitors during festival days,” explains Rahmath Ulla, Manager of Spencer’s Plaza. “The ‘festival crowd’ aspect is almost nil these days,” he adds sombrely. And despite having a parking capacity of 1400 cars and about 5000 bikes, plenty of space is usually available – summing up the hard times that the once-great mall has fallen upon.
There is a notion that malls are frequented by the city’s burgeoning youth populace. Even though several upwardly mobile people who have outgrown the youth tag will dispute that, the fact remains that the youth no longer fancy what Spencer Plaza has to offer, “I prefer other malls to Spencer as it does not have any theatres,” says Sundar Baskaran, student. “Due to the Metro Rail construction, lot of diversions have been introduced and so that part of Mount Road isn’t easily accessible,” complains Meenakshi Viswanathan, a Media Professional.
Despite the CMRL diversions taking a larger toll on Express Avenue, crowd number has not only remained the same – it is constantly climbing. “The brand mix and variety of shops at Spencer is very low. Also, the food court over there is not very attractive,” explains Vishnu Rajamanickam, an engineer. “I require a one-stop shopping, dining and movie destination as it is difficult to drag my mother to separate places. Therefore I’d choose not to go to Spencer’s,” says Sruthakeerthi Mohan Ram, a Commerce student.
As if it isn’t enough that the profile of Spencer’s shops aren’t quite attractive enough, the age-old facilities are a constant gripe “The passage inside is very dimly lit and there are not enough sign boards to direct us to shops. Therefore I get lost when searching for shops,” says Maya Murali, a student. And while every other mall in the city ensures that there is uninterrupted supply of AC despite powercuts, Spencer comes up short on this count. And the lesser said about the dingy and generally smelly state of the toilets in the mall, the better. Another common complaint that visitors to the mall raise is that when it does rain, several holes in the ceiling make it a nightmare for shoppers to walk around the place. Gayathri V, a mother of eight-year old and a six-year old adds, “My kids do not prefer visiting Spencer’s as it does not have any children’s play area.”
The slope has only gotten more slippery after Citi Centre, Ampa Skywalk, Express Avenue and more recently Phoenix Marketcity and Forum Vijaya Mall opened up. “After the advent of other malls in the city, about 25-30 shops moved out. But many more shops found Spencers affordable compared to others,” says Rahmath Ulla. Over a period of time, bigger shops got bifurcated into many small shops, diversifying the brand mix. Shabir Khan runs a Kashmiri arts and craft shop, Master Collection at this mall. “Our shop is 20 years old. We were very successful in the first decade. With Express Avenue, Ampa Skywalk and now the Phoenix, our sales figures have gone down by 25 per cent.”
However, there is still one section of the visitors who find the mall more attrative than its swankier counterparts: expats and tourists. Axeler John and his friend from the UK were seen busily shopping at Spencer’s Plaza. Quiz them as to what they like the best here and pat comes the reply, “This mall has retained the essence of Indian brands and traditional shopping. Coming from abroad, I am not looking for international brands that every mall offers. I wanted to purchase some authentic Indian crafts and this mall seemed best suited for it!”