Kolkata: Some popular malls in Kolkata struggled to accommodate customers’ cars in the parking lot for the weekend.
Although footsteps are still 40% -50% from August 2019, the number of vehicles rose 20% in the same period after a sharp increase in the use of private vehicles after a pandemic.
While one mall adds to the parking facilities, others are evaluating the cost of creating a vertical parking lot to overcome the situation.
At least three malls, parking lots have become chock-a-block at 16:00 for the last four-five weekends.
It was a rare phenomenon in July-August in the pre-pandemic period when parking requests usually jump closer to Durga Puja and Diwali.
“The parking space crunch did occur before and during the festival.
But considering that this has happened early, it is a reason to be a concern.
We don’t want shoppers to turn out because of the problem with parking.
Therefore, we have added 54 slots in the City International School South right behind the mall.
In addition, we have made provisions to park 200-odd cars on the road around the mall.
Thus, we can now park around 1,450 cars at a certain time point.
But even it proved inadequate.
Thus , We made provisions to park 250 additional cars at school, “said Mall City South Vice-President Manmohan Bagree.
On the other hand, downtown I in Salt Lake never made many provisions for car parking such as forums (an annexe building arranged further to accommodate more cars), the first mall of the city.
It has rented a slight slip used from Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation to park 350 cars at once.
The absence of further parking is painful now.
Even though the customer’s part parked their car in the block around the mall and then walked, many also gave it.
While some of them can return on weekdays to shop, he loses other customers.
About 60% of sales are produced between 4pm and 21:00 at the mall.
“The use of private vehicles has increased well due to safety and comfort.
While many do not feel a public transportation safe in the current scenario, getting public transportation is also difficult.
In addition, most taxi applications now refuse to operate ACS.
Thus, we have 15% -20% buyers who come with a car.
This forces us to evaluate vertical parking options, “Ambuja Neotia Realty Director all the time Ramesh Pandey.
In Mani Square, a queue car on the road service stretched outside the Apollo Hospital on weekend nights.
One of the first malls to establish a separate building for multi-level parking that can accommodate 800 cars, proved to be inadequate on weekends.
“We have a substantial parking lot but not enough.
We rarely face such a situation in the past and never earlier,” said Mani Group Director Sudarshana Gangulee.
In the Acropolis and Quest, the situation is a little better because there are still many people from the environment.
“There has been an uptick in Footfall and the appropriate sales.
We have watched Spurt in the number of customers who come with their own cars and bikes.
The five-level underground parking facilities have proven enough until now,” said the Acropolis Mall General Manager K Vijayan.
“The average parking time for vehicles in the mall is about two hours.
So, the vehicle is in and out.
There are times when parking is full.
But because many customers in the quest are driven, they go down while the car does a round or park on Another place, “said Vice President Quest Sanjeev Mehra.