Is this real life, something from a movie, or technology of the future?

It seems like the Klang Valley is being flooded with malls lately. From the super eye-catching Sunway Velocity in Cheras, to the friendly neighbourhood Starling Mall in Damansara Uptown, shoppers in the Klang Valley are quite literally surrounded with choices for where to do their shopping.

One of the latest up-and-coming malls is KL Gateway Mall, situated in the Bangsar South enclave that perfectly straddles Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. It is part of the KL Gateway integrated development plan comprising premium offices and high-rise residences on Jalan Kerinchi, just off the Federal Highway. It is located not far from Mid Valley Megamall and surrounded by “affluent” neighbourhoods like Bangsar South, Damansara Heights, Seputeh and Taman Desa. The mall is reported to have 80% occupancy rate, with a good mix of tenants including Daiso, H&M and Village Grocer. Korean fashion retailer The Twee will also be opening its first flagship store in Southeast Asia here, which will definitely be a selling point among fashionistas and K-fashion lovers.

Artist impression of KL Gateway Mall (Image from Suez Cap)

One of the mall’s main advantages over other shopping malls is its direct link to the KL Gateway-Universiti LRT station, which is connected via a 100-metre link bridge. Only a handful of malls can boast that advantage, which is an important factor to attract visitors. However, the biggest draw to KL Gateway Mall will be its automated car parking facilities, which is the biggest of its kind in South-east Asia and the second largest in the world.

In Japan, automated parking is nothing new. Remember this scene from Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift? It was pretty funny, but besides that, it also showed us (all the way back in 2006!) that automated parking is very real, and very much possible.

“You park your car in a lift and take a card which contains a 4-digit secret number, and after that the car is automatically parked at a bay. When you want to leave, just key in the number and the machine will tell you where the car is located,” explained Michael Chee, Head of Asset Management at Suez Domain Sdn Bhd, the developers of KL Gateway Mall. There will be a total of 1,238 automated parking bays available and 900 normal ones. It’s the perfect solution for those who enjoy going to shopping malls, but dread the notion of having to circle around looking for parking spots, which can take anything from 30 minutes to an hour during peak hours.

We imagine the automated parking system will work similar to this bike parking system in Japan:

Residents of the integrated development in Bangsar South will also benefit from unique features such as an outdoor garden and jogging path to help make them feel the mall is part of the neighbourhood. “The whole mall will have free wifi, and the mall plans to create open work spaces where people can actually do their work without having to go to expensive cafes to purchase a drink just to have somewhere to work,” Chee added. It will definitely be a good place for people to meet up for drinks or conduct casual business meetings, not only because of its ideal location between KL and PJ, but also due to the parking convenience and facilities provided.

KL Gateway Mall will be open to the public on March 2, 2017. Are you looking forward to a new place to dine and shop, or simply ~~think there are too many malls around~~ can’t catch up with all these new developments in the Klang Valley?