No review for the Baypride Mall yet? OK, guess this will have to do.Cochin is seeing a spate of new malls coming up, with the huge Lulu mall at Edappally junction coming up, a Pretige Group Forum mall on the opposite end of the bypass road and the Oberon mall nearing opening.. can’t wait!, this mall is a mini mall, but a mall, nonetheless.
Location:
Ah, real estate is about 3 major things: 1. Location, 2. Location and finally, 3 , you guessed it, :Location!
Well, if this were all, the BPM has it all, lovely location, bang in the centre of kochi on Marine drive, with apartments above it, nice location
Parking:
Limited space, but there is always a parking spot when I go, either under the mall or outside, but still not like the the lovely multi level parking of the Forum in Bangalore..needs work, only 2 stars for this
Shops:
Any mall is about the shops, at least the Abad group, who built the place, have been careful that there are no corner paan shops or "petti- kadas’s "a’la the next door GCDA mall. The shops include a nice First Citizen for Citizen watches and clocks, Levis jeans, VIP luggage, a weekender kids, A Barista (pricey coffee) and my favorite, a stationery shop selling all sorts of interesting office stuff ( I guess it’s just me) called Write stuff, or something similar, I got a nice labelling gun there, which was different and not available in my regular shop
The Ground floor also has a small food court , maybe with 15 tables, with OK chinese, Indian fare, a counter for pastry and dessert and a Marrybrown outlet, that sells great fries, OK burgers and passable fried chicken, with a children’s play area, pretty good for the size, though far too small to be called a mall
First Floor: A music world outlet, a large Archies Gallery, a wellspun home outlet and a few other shops
Escalator: One available, without which the 1st floor footfalls would be much less
Airconditioning: **Yes
So, in a nutshell, this is an OK mall, could be larger, but it serves a purpose, and is not going to seed like the Esplanade close by. But once the Oberon, Forum and the Lulu mall are open, I guess I wouldn’t bother going there, unless I’m in the area