The 12-story Living Mall, operated by Core Pacific City Co (京華城), in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) turned off its lights floor by floor on Thursday night to symbolize its closure after 18 years.
The shopping mall is to officially close its doors today and the iconic granite-clad building on Bade Road is to be torn down to make way for a new office complex.
Speaking at a lights-out ceremony on Thursday, Core Pacific Group (威京集團) chairman Shen Ching-ching (沈慶京) said that he was deeply saddened to have to make such a decision, but had no choice because of huge operating losses.
The business lost NT$18 billion (US$589.9 million) last year, he said, apologizing to the company’s shareholders and the mall’s customers.
“The closing of the mall symbolizes the disillusion of a dream of mine,” the 72-year-old tycoon said with tears in his eyes.
After the closure, some of the mall’s 120 employees plan to retire, while the others would be reassigned to other Core Pacific Group businesses, Shen said.
The office complex that is to replace the mall would be beautiful and comfortable, he said.
When the mall opened in November 2001 it was said to be the biggest in the nation with 62,000 ping (204,959m2) of floor space — 12 stories above ground and eight below.
The mall began as a 24 hour, seven days a week operation, posting revenue of NT$8 billion in its first year.
However, over the years it lost customers due to its distance from the nearest MRT station and the growing popularity of Xinyi District (信義), H&B Business Group (住商不動產) head researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said.
The group in December last year began to seek a buyer for the complex, which was priced at NT$38 billion, then later lowered to NT$34.2 billion.
The complex was finally sold in September to Core Pacific Group affiliate China Petrochemical Development Corp (中石化) for NT$37.2 billion.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle