新型都會休閒購物中心—京華城如何改變都會生活型態

許馨、詹婉鈺、梁逸嵐

New Living Mall—Core Pacific City Changes Taipei Residents’ Lifestyles

Recently, it has been estimated that more than ten thousand people went to the Core Pacific City (京華城) during weekends and holidays, and that has produced a great impact on the other department stores in Taipei. In this paper, we try to describe how the Core Pacific City (CPC) changes the citizens’ lifestyles and what influences it has exerted on the management of other department stores.

In the beginning, we try to analyze how the CPC attracted people to come and shop. First, the location of the CPC is convenient for vehicle owners because the CPC is located at Pah-Teh Road Section 4 (八德路四段), between Civil Boulevard (市民大道) and Tung-Ning (東寧路) Road, and it has more than 1,500 parking spaces for cars and more than 2,500 parking spaces for motorcycles. It is very accessible for people who live in other cities near the Taipei County. And Core Pacific City also provides free buses to supplement other forms of public transportation such as the TRT system and buses. Second, the buildings of the CPC itself is grand and spectacular. It has the world’s largest dome-shaped shopping center, and in front of it, there will be a big and beautiful park and a puppet art museum that will attract more people to visit the location. Third, the interior design of the building is also an important factor that makes the CPC Pacific City different from other department stores. Its spatial design speaks of modernity and futurism. People who come to the CPC will get a totally different shopping experience.

Faced with CPC’s immense attraction, the other department stores are feeling somewhat nervous. In competition with Taiwan’s biggest shopping mall—Core Pacific City, the other department stores need to defend themselves with new strategies. There are three main strategies. Renovation is the first way many department stores adopt. The assistant manager of SOGO department store states that they believe different styles of different department stores will maintain different batches of customers; therefore, they do not consider these new shopping malls as a threat. Still, they are remodeling some floors of the store to give a new image to their customers. Across town, exquisite boutiques and luxury goods stores at the Regency Hotel are also re-equipping their stores to increase competitiveness. A jewelry show worth 400 million NT dollars was held on opening day to draw in the crowd. The second way is the formation of alliance among individual department stores. For example, Shin Kong Misukoshi, New York New York, Warner Village Cinemas Centre, and Neo 19 jointly held a function called “Christmas Festival at Shi-Yi area” by decorating the streets and sponsoring activities such as the Abosolut charitable cocktail party, a Christmas carriage parade, and a fashion show. These department stores hope to not only gather their customers but also attract more people through the joint effort. Annual sales, limited time only products, and best buy promotion seem to be their ultimate strategy. Many department stores, such as Sunrise Department Store, Paris Paris and Breeze Center, even moved up their anniversary sales so as to combat the opening of CPC.

Many customers and members of the media thought that the CPC and Breeze Center, being close to each other and opening within the same month, would be tied in fierce competition with each other. Unexpectedly, they are joining forces in order to benefit from a win win strategy in the retail market. Since both shopping malls maintain different styles and possess different groups of customers, competition between them was not as serious as the slow economy. In the end, it is the consumers who are the last and only winners!

Core Pacific City had brought forth many groundbreaking ways of management to the department store profession. The difference between it and other traditional malls is that it is the first twenty-four hour shopping mall in Taiwan, with nonstop services on the overnight shopping arcade floors, and restaurants and entertaining facilities inside the enormous building. The CPC is a retail-entertainment-cultural urban complex, providing an innovating shopping environment for consumers to spend their leisure hours, introducing to Taipei residents a whole new form of lifestyle and an enhancement of both quality and quantity over our usual shopping experience. The interior and exterior designs of the CPC aim at promoting a world-class image of a total-position living mall. It is planned to become a gathering place for people and a 24-hour public resource for everyone to enjoy. 

Possible benefits from the visionary ideas of the Jerde Partnership International (威京國際集團) in response to today's universal interest in places like the Living Mall that can offer heightened experience on goods and services are clear: the project itself is the establishment of a new understanding of urbanism, community and the on-going global evolution toward e-connectivity. The Jerde project will create value in city making, annual tax income, urban developments and community growth for the Taiwanese society. And lastly, the Jerde Project as a social phenomenon will also demonstrate some possible qualities of a successful shopping mall for the near future.