Over 500 at Harbour City launch in Melaka

MELAKA: Hatten Group Sdn Bhd launched Harbour City, a six-acre (2.43ha) mixed-use marine-themed development located on the eastern shores of Pulau Melaka, last Saturday. The launch was held at the grand foyer of Terminal Pahlawan in Melaka.

“As a world-class leisure and entertainment development on Pulau Melaka, Harbour City is ahead of the burgeoning wave of developments mushrooming in the area,” said group managing director Colin Tan.

The concept of Harbour City is a self-sustaining, fully incorporated “city of amusement” that infuses three elements — retail, theme park and hotel.

The development will feature a 6-storey themed shopping mall with five floors dedicated to a water theme park, as well as three hotel blocks. Its marine design and interior concept is the key feature of the development and it is inspired by Melaka’s heritage as a major maritime port. The external view of the development is shaped after a cruise ship with its bottom deck forming the retail platforms of Harbour City Mall.

For the retail component, each floor is designed to reflect life on different oceanic levels from “The Trenches” on the lower ground to the “Coastal Layer” on level four. There will be over 800 stores housing a mixture of tenants offering international fashion brands, lifestyle stores along with an F&B zone that has an underwater ambience.

Over RM200 million was invested in the indoor and outdoor theme park that opens onto an upper deck with 500,000 sq ft over five floors. The theme park is known as the Ocean Kingdom Water Theme Park and will be designed and built by the Sanderson Group, thematic developers who were specially commissioned to work on the Warner Brothers’ Movie World theme park in Australia and whose trademark developments can be found in Hong Kong, China, Macau and India. The theme park’s entertainment arena will offer extreme sports and other entertainment. The theme park component aims to attract an additional 1.5 million tourists each year to Pulau Melaka.

Housed in the mid-section of the development is the cruise ship-themed hotel component that comprises 780 rooms with 14 suite layouts, and sizes ranging from 365 sq ft to 1,267 sq ft. The themed hotel offers an immersive seafarer ambience and each room is designed to resemble a ship’s cabin complete with bunk beds, porthole windows and nautical-inspired interiors.

At the end of the “ship” are two premium hotel towers. One will house the 500-room Hatten Resort Hotel, which will offer sky villas with beach views. The other will consist of a 250-room hotel that will be built and managed in collaboration with the Hyatt group of hospitality.

“In view of the burgeoning growth of Melaka as the epicentre of commercial, tourism and property development, Harbour City will be well received by both local and foreign investors who are keen to invest in a quality product with the added guarantee of a booming location,” Tan said.

“With over RM800 million invested in this project, Harbour City will open up a wealth of asset opportunities for investors. It is already earmarked as one of the most eagerly awaited and highly-valued global holiday destinations in the Southeast Asian region.”

Sales of Harbour City started from last Thursday to Sunday at Terminal Pahlawan, Melaka, and the retail and thematic hotel units are now open for sale.

“With the support of the state government and collaborations with Hyatt group of hospitality, Sanderson Group and GuoDu Construction (Group) Co Ltd, Harbour City is set to be the illuminating new vibe of excitement on Pulau Melaka, making it one of the top must-visit tourist attractions in Malaysia,” Tan said.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 23, 2015.