January 2017 | Business View Caribbean

24 25 there are 11 tenants offering duty-free shop- ping for cruise passengers and hotel guests, as well as non-duty-free shopping for locals. The Mall shops offer an array of men’s, ladies’, and children’s apparel, shoes, perfumes, jewelry, liquor, tobacco, souvenirs, cosmetics, batik, swimwear, spices, and crafts. Food outlets include a Subway Sandwich Shop,NewYork’s Finest Bagels, Celine’s Fruity Palace, and a pastry outlet, Sweet Traditions. Sükrü Evrengün, Chairman of Grenreal Proper- ty’s Board of Directors and the Chief Financial Officer of Züblin Grenada Ltd., says that the company has plans to acquire and develop additional properties when and if Grenada’s tourism industry rebounds sufficiently from the Great Recession. “It depends on the cruise passengers that arrive in Grenada,” he explains. “We were fairly hard-hit by the financial cri- sis and the number of passengers went down considerably between 2009 and 2014. It’s now going back up again. This last year, it came to around 350,000 and we expect growth to con- tinue. But at this moment, the size of the mall fits the passenger numbers as they are now, and Grenreal Property Corporation Limited it would not be wise to increase because then you would get too much competition and some of your tenants may not survive.” Linton says that because Grenada is a small community,“when cruise numbers go up, every- one is aware of the fact.”The cruise facility, itself, is built to handle up to 500,000 passengers. If that number is exceeded, there would likely be the need for an additional jetty, as well as more facilities and amenities to handle the increase in passenger traffic. “If we get to 500,000 by next year,we’ll have Diamonds International and all of the bigger companies that we’d like to get in,” she adds. “We know that they’ll be coming.” “There is room to grow,” says Evrengün,“because permission was granted by the Government of Grenada to reclaim 22 acres, but only 9.8 acres were created. And,we have identified areas where we could fairly easily create an additional ten acres of land in connection with a second jetty. Grenada is on the road back,”he asserts. “There are still some interesting possibilities for business in Grenada generally and at the shopping mall in particular. We are open to proposals.” Preferred vendor n Legend Way International www.legendway.com