Living Mall (aka Core Pacific City Mall) on Bade Road in Taipei City has closed. This ambitious project from the early 2000s was open 24/7 in its early days and boasted twelve stories above ground and eight stories below. The mall was apparently hemorrhaging money toward the end.
Source: http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aeco/201911280014.aspx
It was never a place that caught my attention. Will it be missed by other forumosans?
Guy
One of the weirdest activities I’ve done in Taiwan was located there. They had this sort of laser tag escape room concept that had us running through the actual shopping areas of the mall “shooting” at each other while shoppers mostly ignored us, mostly. Just a strange set up that I imagine only works because… Taiwan.
I’ll miss it a little. It’s close-ish to where my aunt lives so we used to walk there on occasion and browse Daiso or Nitori. I also bought some toys and baby books for my nieces there.
I haven’t visited it at all for maybe a year now, though. It’s definitely not in the best location. Not close enough to an MRT stop, and not really close to any bus stops, either. If you’re not within walking distance, there’s just no good reason to go.
Just a little, used to bring the kids there sometimes.
Wait, has it really already closed? Because one of my kids is going there for a school excursion today. Oh, it’s going to be so awkward…
Are they there to start knocking it down? Or maybe they’re gonna loot it.
It’s already sold and going to be knocked for sure…
Some losses…Hard to believe that’s true to be honest.
The total losses of the business were NT$18 billion (US$581 million) as of 2018, he said, apologizing to the company’s shareholders and the mall’s long-term customers.
It’s main problem was thst Taipei’s shopping district subsequently all skewed towards far away Xinyi.
20 years ago Xinyi only had one or two malls.
Not sure how this works, but couldn’t they have pressured a city planner or local council to add a bus stop nearby?
Living Mall was always so bizarre, like the mall that time forgot. I saw some movies at the Cinemark there, got some stuff at Daiso. I saw that laser tag game as people ran through the mall in full camo. There used to be bungee jumping at the top but maybe someone fell?
I never fully explored the place, now I want to.
It’s a weird one for sure. The big orb design really puts it in another dimension. Also that loooong external escalator at the entrance. So odd.
We lived not too far away when our daughter was in elementary school. Many, many movies there, and plus Baby Boss a few times with her. Not too much shopping but I remember enjoying browsing in the Nike store. Oh and that Dim Sum place on the 10th or 11th floor. Ate there many times. Sad to see it go but really stopped visiting about 5 years ago.
Edit: Our family is going to see Frozen tomorrow. I mentioned this to our daughter this morning and mentioned also how we would get popcorn and 7-Up, something we always got when we went to movies in Living Mall. Got a little smile out of our teenager daughter (not always easy to do these days).
There was a pretty cool ball pit kids centre thingo on top. Baby boss was good, but very expensive for what it was, which was basically dress ups. Leap frog cafe was ok-ish too. Starbucks at the back - worst espresso I’ve ever drunk. Half the shops on those upper levels untentanted, wasn’t hard to see it coming. Ugly as sin with that weird spherical extrusion… I might go and cheer on the wrecking ball.
The plan was to make it part of the whole Big Egg complex, and thus draw shoppers there. Obviously, that didn’t work out, the huge, stalled construction project made sure that that lifeline wouldn’t materialize in time to save it.
I worked across the street when they were building it, thinking it would be a cool place to go on breaks in the wee hours of the morning after the newspaper was out the door, but I quit before it opened. It’s a shame; I’m sure rich people will enjoy living in whatever they build in its place.
Dongqu aka the area around the blue line is still a major shopping zone. Green SOGO and white SOGO, lots of other stores along the strip, nice boutiques and places to eat tucked into the alleys. But Xinyi has definitely become more of the “one stop shop” area. And I think SOGO probably makes most of its money during the anniversary sales event, whereas Xinyi is packed with shoppers and tourists pretty much year round.
The article I linked in the first post indicates the new building on that site will have commercial office space and not more luxury housing.
Guy
I wonder what will replace it. Ideally an arena to compliment the useful Taipei Dome.
So I should take my deposit back now ?
Do we really need any more of this, anywhere? So much white collar work can be done remotely now…
It’s a good point but it seems like there is still demand unless they plan to lose another 500 million bucks.
As long as they don’t do a wework on it…
I’m living 3 years in neighborhood and never even think about visiting that design disaster. Building from outside looks like Borg ship from Star trek and I was afraid to get assimilated 