Exclusive Interview with Emily Chew
Up close & personal with the creator of ESPACE in Grand Merdeka
Mall and why ESPACE will be your kid’s next favourite place to go!
Interview by Stella Matilda | Image by Hannah William Photography
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Born and raised in Kota Kinabalu. I come from a humble family background, and growing up in a property developer family with strong work ethic and strict discipline. I am an Australian National University (ANU) graduate with Bachelor of Commerce (Major in Accounting & Management), and a certified chartered accountant with MIA and CPA Australia accreditation. I am drawn to music, dance, arts and design at a young age. Started ballet training at the age of 5,and pursued ballet for 15 years. I further honed my entrepreneurship and creativity skills by joining my family property development company. Noticing the need for change of landscape and supporting the economy drive in the northern corridor of Kota Kinabalu, i.e. Menggatal, my family decided to start Grand Merdeka Mall and the subsequent future development on this 19 acre land.
How did the idea for ESPACE come about?
After 10 months of operation of the Grand Merdeka Mall, I had an epiphany to change the course of the mall. Thinking to myself how do we differentiate the mall from the malls in the city and our nearby competitors? We can’t just copy and paste the same format in GM Mall. There is no competitive edge for GM Mall if we just put in similar tenant mix as the malls in the region. So I have decided to put more than 50% of the net lettable area (NLA = 300,000 sq ft in total) as family recreation and entertainment outlets, 20-25% as F&B and the rest are for other tenant mix.It was by chance that my dad and I met up with Kay Yi who then introduced Issac of Escape. We then pursue and venture into this approximately 7,000 sq ft area in the GM Mall as Entertainment Arena, that house a family karaoke centre (KMIX), ESPACE (family and group recreation space with games ranging from synthetic ice skating, archery battle, bubble soccer, soccer darts and many more, 10 lanes of conventional archery arena, and the ESCAPE that promises their newest and more challenging games in town. ESPACE is also known as “Entertainment Space”.
I love that ESPACE offers the first Ice Skating Rink in Sabah. Do you mind to tell me what give you this brilliant idea and how does it work?
It was a group effort to come out with Sabah first ever synthetic ice skating rink. It is about 3000 sq ft rink at the second floor of the mall. Due to the extremely high cost of CAPEX and maintenance cost to maintain a real ice skating rink, and yet at the same time bringing in a new, fresh and most importantly affordable ice skating arena for family, children and corporate companies to have team building activities. Hence a synthetic version came into mind. Synthetic ice skating rink is not relatively new in other parts of the world, or even west Malaysia. There are a few malls that have also installed synthetic Ice Skating, such as Sunway Velocity Mall. Our skaters will wear the normal ice skating shoes and gears to skate on the rink as per the real ice.
Why should families choose to come all the way to ESPACE in Grand Merdeka Mall?
ESPACE in Grand Merdeka Mall is a place for you and your family to spend quality time together and strengthen bonds amongst family members. The games that we offer will make family members of all ages to enjoy and to bond at an affordable price.
How can school integrate their sports activities with ESPACE?
We have also planned to integrate school extra curriculum activities with ESPACE sports/games such as providing the ice skating rink to be the official skating rink for schools. We will organised workshops for school students and also sponsored a few students from each school or institutions to be trained by qualified trainers. Workshops would also encompassed ice skating and archery sports. With these workshops, we are able to help schools to cultivate, nurture and train potential ice skating and archery athletes.
To learn more about what ESPACE is offering, kindly visit them at Grand Merdeka Mall or call 088 357 977. Special bookings are available for birthday parties, team building and many more.
