How We Built It

How Popular Palms Shopping Mall Was Birthed

 

In 2015, three Nigerians interacted with Mr Tayo Amusan (Chairman, Persianas Group) and he narrated how he got ShopRite to become his “anchor tenant”. Today, he became ShopRite s owner. In this 2015 piece, Taiwo Obe, ace journalist and founder of The Journalism Clinic tells of their meeting with the billionaire business man where he narrated the encounters that gave birth to what is now known as The Palms Shopping Mall.

 

Excerpts:

Ideas get triggered somehow. This is how the idea for The Palms Mall (many Lagosians call it Shoprite because that’s the anchor tenant) grabbed Tayo Amusan (gesticulating here), fondly called “Chairman” by his staff, friends and associates – he’s chairman, Persianas Group.

 

He told the story to me, Ifeanyi Mbanefo (in ankara here; and I had last week told a little of his story) and Kunle Adeyemi, the futurist architect who conceptualised and developed the Makoko Floating School ( if you Google this, you’d read more on it).
“Chairman” was returning to Nigeria from a UK trip and he had no luggage. The airline staff was like “are you serious, look behind you and see the mountains of luggage your fellow passengers are checking in.” The lady at the counter wondered if he was not a Nigerian until “Chairman” presented his Nigerian passport. One or two people who had excess luggage had approached him to help check in their luggage. (Not sure if he did; we didn’t get to that).
He returned to Lagos and not long after, the wife of one of the tenants of Persianas’s sprawling estate on Danmole Street, off Idejo, Victoria Island, Lagos, where this meeting took place, lamented to “Chairman” that for six months she had been trying to furnish her apartment without luck: no furniture/interior decoration stores.
“Can’t you people think?” the lady, obviously a foreigner, had asked “Chairman” in frustration.
Oh, of course, “Chairman”‘s blood had been boiling since that encounter with the airline lady. “In most rich people’s homes, there exist mini-supermarkets (of brands and products from all around the world),” he kept thinking.
He had a piece of land, near where The Palms Mall is, which he had planned to build apartment blocks on. With those two episodes, he decided it was time for a shopping place. On that land. Widely connected – if you know him – he got the group that would later be known as Actis interested in financing.
The rep of the group came to Nigeria and they both visited the land he had intended for the venture. The rep was convinced about the project, indeed he assured “Chairman” his group would invest.
“He told me, ‘even in my sleep I’ll give you money but I have just one question,'” recalled “Chairman”.
What was that question? The rep noted that he had travelled widely and every city with the attributes Lagos has, particularly high population, and hordes of street traders, there were malls, “so why is there no mall in this your city?”
Ah. “Chairman” wasn’t expecting that kind of question but he had to quickly find an answer.
“I told him we had department stores such as Kingsway, Leventis, UTC, but the military regime began to hawk import licences and that was the end of an open economy….” Am sure that even if he didn’t have an answer, that rep was already salivating about the potentials.
Did you go to The Palms Mall during Yuletide? Did you see how the stores, particularly Shoprite was packed (not jam packed; thanks, MS). Aha.
By the way, how “Chairman” got to take Shoprite to Enugu is another interesting story, but that would be for another day.
So, what took Mbanefo, Adeyemi and me to this man? Another story for another day.
Billionaire businessman, Tayo Amusun with ace journalist, Taiwo Obe and Kunle Adeyemi
Editor’s Note: This article is reproduced from a 2015 article by Taiwo Obe, founder and director of the Journalism Clinic.
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