Mall fit-outs run on the mall's terms: an approval drawing set, a fit-out manual, a barricade specification, night-only working, and a handover date after which the lease charges rent whether you are trading or not. That process deserves as much attention as the joinery.
Most delay on a mall unit is administrative rather than physical. An approval returned with comments, a contractor without a gate pass, or a barricade that fails inspection each cost days you are already paying rent for. We have not delivered a Bengaluru mall unit, and the photography here is our Chennai cafe.
Every mall issues one governing shopfront line, signage zone, ceiling void access, sprinkler and detector coordination, flooring transitions and permitted materials. We read it before designing, not after an approval is refused.
Malls approve a defined drawing set before mobilisation. We prepare and submit it and handle the comment cycle. This is where weeks are usually lost, so it starts the day the unit is confirmed.
Built to the mall's specification with approved graphics before any work begins. A non-compliant barricade gets the site shut down at the first inspection.
Most malls permit tenant work only after trading hours, with materials moved through a booked service route. The programme is built around a six-to-eight-hour productive window from the outset.
Sprinkler drops, smoke detectors and the mall's HVAC and electrical tie-ins are all inspected. Each is a dependency on a mall engineer's availability, not just on our labour.
Largely factory-built, delivered and assembled in a very short overnight window. Precision matters more than on a fixed unit — a kiosk that does not fit its footprint cannot be adjusted on a trading concourse.
Most mall leases charge from a fixed date whether the unit trades or not. Every week of overrun is rent on a closed shop, which is why the approval cycle deserves as much attention as the build.
Malls grant a defined fit-out period, sometimes with overrun penalties. Long-lead items — custom glazing, imported signage, specific flooring — are ordered before the window opens, not inside it.
The mall inspects before permitting trading: sprinkler coordination, signage compliance, flooring transitions, barricade removal. We sequence so nothing outstanding sits between us and that inspection.
Standards, regulatory registries, and manufacturer references that back the material grades, pricing framework, and compliance points in this guide:
No. Our completed retail work is a high-street cafe fit-out in Chennai, and our only delivered Bengaluru project is a villa interior. Mall work adds an approvals and night-works layer on top of the same trades, and this page sets out how we run it — but if a delivered mall unit is a shortlisting requirement, we do not meet it.
Four to eight weeks of site work for a typical unit, but the honest answer includes the approval cycle before it. Mall drawing approval and its comment cycle commonly add two to four weeks, and night-only working roughly halves productive hours per day. We start the approval submission the day the unit is confirmed, because that is where the recoverable time is.
It is the mall's rulebook for tenant works: shopfront line and signage zone, permitted materials, ceiling void and sprinkler coordination, flooring transitions, barricade specification, working hours, and the material service route. It governs the design, so it must be read before drawings are produced. A design that ignores it gets rejected at approval, and that rejection costs weeks of a fit-out window you are paying rent against.
Yes. We prepare the approval set in the mall's format, submit it, and manage the comment cycle to sign-off, along with contractor gate passes and worker documentation. The approval decision is the mall's; the completeness of the submission is what determines how many cycles it takes.
Because tenant works cannot disturb trading tenants or shoppers. In practice that means a booked service-lift slot, materials moved after closing, and a productive window of roughly six to eight hours rather than a full day. It does not make a fit-out impossible — it makes the programme longer, and it has to be planned that way from the start.
It is mostly a factory-build problem. A kiosk is fabricated off site, delivered and assembled in a very short overnight window on a trading concourse, so dimensional precision matters far more — there is no chance to trim something to fit. Power tie-in point, footprint dimensions and the mall's height restriction must be confirmed before fabrication starts, not at delivery.
Share the mall's unit drawings, the fit-out manual, and your lease commencement date. We will come back with an approval timeline, a night-works programme, and a BOQ separating mall-mandated compliance from your own scope.