Malleria is set to strike the northern fringes of the city, with the nondescript corridor of BT Road and Jessore Road looking to ride a retail crest.

Swanky south will finally have competition from at least five large-format retail-entertainment addresses, set to be functional in the next 30 months.

The new growth zone will see the 200,000-sq-ft Diamond City North mall coming up on Jessore Road, near the Lake Town connector. With its four-screen multiplex by INOX and Pantaloons as anchor, it aims to serve residents of Lake Town, Kalindi, Bangur, Nager Bazar, Dum Dum and Chiria More.

The Avani Group’s Europa, a Rs 90-crore, 430,000-sq-ft retail lair coming up between Lake Town and Bangur Avenue will have miniature replicas of European must-visit landmarks built into its façade design, besides a four-screen cineplex by Shringar Cinemas and a hypermart anchor.

“Traditionally, the leading city developers have turned their backs on north Calcutta, resulting in hardly any organised development and certainly no large-format projects. Now all that will change,” predicts A.N. Shroff, head of the Diamond Group consortium, developing Diamond City North.

With VIP Road almost saturated and the massive captive catchment having “decent disposal income levels”, the BT Road-Jessore Road belt will be the “next growth area in organised retail”, agrees Abhijit Das, regional director of property consultants Trammell Crow Meghraj. About time, residents of north Calcutta would say.

B.T. Road, home to the small and medium enterprises and a “middle-to-lower middle-class” population, is also set to be energised by retail razzmatazz.

Design plans for three mammoth malls are being finalised, with the biggie being an 800,000-sq-ft property near Sodepur, with a multi-level car park, set to cost around Rs 120 crore.

“The malls coming up in that area will not follow the Forum format. They will cater to the middle-income group, stressing more on value shopping,” observes J.P. Agrawal, the architect who created the Elgin Road mall and who is now designing three large retail stops in the BT Road-Jessore Road zone.

Piyush Bhagat of Space Group, which is constructing a 350,000-sq-ft mall with a four-screen multiplex on BT Road, feels the availability of large tracts of industrial land up north has catalysed the recent growth spurt.

“South Calcutta used to be considered the ultimate destination for retail. But paucity of land banks in the heart of south Calcutta is now triggering a definite shift of balance towards the north,” observes Bhagat.

Architect Agrawal feels the upcoming retail addresses would serve another critical purpose.

“With the absence of any civic infrastructure for entertainment like parks and gardens in the area, these malls will double as contemporary entertainment centres. This is the module of the future, when residents from the suburbs won’t have to travel back to downtown for anything,” he points out.