Residents of Kuala Lumpur and its southern outskirts will have a new one-stop centre dedicated to all home-related products and services, entertainment, lifestyle, great accessibility and ample parking when Viva Home mall opens its doors for business in October 2010.

Located along Jalan Loke Yew at the old location of the Uncang Emas 3 (UE3) mall, Viva Home will be accessible via overhead bridges and a walkway linking it to the Taman Miharja light rail transit station.

“We sought out an excellent location. Somewhere visible. Somewhere accessible. Somewhere close to homes,” Yee Ia Howe, chief executive officer of Viva Mall Sdn Bhd said at the Viva Home Retailers’ Launch on 1st December 2009 at the Maya Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

“Jalan Loke Yew is an ideal location in the city, with access to major arteries and the catchment area of Cheras. Better than that, we are creating more access roads in and out of Viva Home so as to make it easier for everyone to get to us. All these pull factors appeal to the end consumer and that benefits you. It is our job to bring the traffic to you and we are confident we will do so," Yee added.

The first four floors will comprise retailers of home products, including furniture, furnishing, home deco, home improvement services, a variety of food and beverage outlets, a hypermarket, banks, an exhibition hall to showcase the latest home products and other related events, clear merchandising zoning to ensure identifiable retail zones and concepts to make shopping a pleasurable experience, a comfortable shopping ambience with shopper-focused amenities such as pick-up and drop-off areas, mother’s room and a 2,000 bay car park.

The fifth floor will house anchor tenants - an MBO cinema with nine screens and ICT Gadgets, an information and communicatiions technology (ICT) section occupying 50,000 sq ft selling computers, peripherals, accessories, mobile phones, handheld devices, telecommunications equipment and accessories.

“We expect to have about 150 ICT shops,” said Roger Lim, managing director of The Gadgets Shop who will set up a new company to manage the ICT section at Viva Home. Lim plans to also establish and manage other ICT Gadgets malls at other locations.

Costing a total of RM210 million, redevelopment work has already begun by the new owner Viva Mall Sdn Bhd, a company under the Kha Seng Corporation Sdn Bhd umbrella, a niche commercial property developer with successful projects such as Central Market and Kenanga Wholesale City in its portfolio.

When competed, Viva Home will comprise five floors with a total floor area of 660,000 sq ft with typical lots ranging from 300 to 2,000 sq ft, whilst an anchor tenant, Old Town White Coffee will occupy 10,000 sq ft in the complex.

“The complete refurbishment includes the planning and redesign of the mall façade, circulation, the creation of a new retail floor featuring a prominent mall entrance and prime retail lots, the upgrading of all amenities and parking facilities. Externally, egress and ingress is enhanced with dedicated access for shoppers from both Kuala Lumpur as well as Cheras,” said Martin Haeger, director of the HL Design Group, the architectural and interior design consultants of the project.

Besides the retail mall, Phase 2 of the mixed development will feature a boutique, four-star, business-class hotel above the retail mall. Construction of Phase 2 is due to begin soon in 2010.