On the 3rd December, 2009 Suria Sabah, Kota Kinabalu latest shopping mall, opened its doors to the publics, and thereby adding more shopping experience for the local communities and tourists alike. Suria Sabah is located right at the heart of Kota Kinabalu business district, immediately opposite to the Standard Charter Bank and just beside Wisma Sabah Building along Tun Fuad Stephens street. From an aerial view, the architectural design of the building is like a “L” shape, and the mall is divided into two sections, Jesselton Mall and Kinabalu Mall. These names also represent the past and present names of the city. For now Suria Sabah is not completed yet, but the retailing section is ready to welcome the customers. Presently only a few retailers are operating at Suria Sabah, yet they have come at a right time, since the Christmas shopping season has just begun.
The major anchor tenant for Suria Sabah is Metrojaya, which is one of the top major departmental stores in Malaysia. The Metrojaya Suria Sabah branch is the 8th. in the whole of Malaysia. Located at the centre of Suria Sabah, Metrojaya takes up 4 floors of shopping space, with a total retailing area of 125,000 square feet. Metrojaya is a full fletch departmental store with products ranging from fashions, accessories, perfume and beauty products, children wear, sport wear, and household items. Some of the in house brands carried by Metrojaya are East India Company, Somerset Bay and Living Quarters. In the women fashion section designer brands like Arthur Yen, Anne Kelly, Diane Caroll and Laura Ashley give women even a better selection of choices. When tired of shopping one can visit the cafeteria on the 1st floor of Metrojaya, have a cup of coffee and snacks, and enjoy the great view of Gaya Island and Jesselton Point.
From left to right:
- Metrojaya Men Wears
- Metrojaya Living Quarters
- Metrojaya Women Wears
Other notable retailers at Suria Sabah are Bata, Reject Shop, Elianto, Habib, Voir, L’occitane, GNC, and Eu Yang Sang. Fast food giants like KFC, Pizza Huts and Kenny Roger have already started serving their popular meals to the customers. Below are shops and retailers that have started business at Suria Sabah.
Fashions and Clothings
Accessories, Shoes and Bags
Beauty & Personal Care
Sport
Book & Card
Optical
Jewellery & Watch
Health
Food & Beverage
Some of the popular retailers already open for business in Suria Sabah are Body Shop, Ms Read, and Levi’s. On the food section Secret Recipe, Big Apple Donuts and Coffee, and the Suria Food Court on the 3rd floor have also started operation. Note: the 3rd floor Suria Food Court has a great view over Gaya Island and Jesselton Point, the old wharf. The Golden Screen Cinemas on the 8th floor with a total of 8 cinemas, is in full swing now. And this is the only cinema in Kota Kinabalu with a 3D facility.
There are ample parking spaces located on the fourth floor to the eighth floor. The entrance to the car park is situated at the back of the shopping mall which is facing the sea front. Business hours are from 10am to 10pm.
kinabalu mall
Other Shopping malls in Kota Kinabalu:
This suria sabah is going to be another wawasan plaza with 1 departmental store similar to parkson in wawasan plaza with only several fast food outlets like kfc.
I went for their opening and to my surprise only ten outlets opened thus far. I was surprised that that their opening was super weak without even having 50% of shops opened.
They seem to rush to open so that they could catch the December months festive celebration but there was no thematic deco put up at all except for Metrojaya.
No proper planning was carried out and there was no clear directory i.e. signage’s leading to all amenities and facilities.
The best part is that the management of suria sabah allows the fast food operators to place their tables & chairs outside of the premises and right into the walkway.
This clearly reflects their inexperienced management skills.
I noticed that the shopper s traffic were weak and not sustainable due to weak opening. Shoppers don’t go to the same shop every day.
I went there again last Saturday evening around 5.30pm and there were hardly any shoppers there. I observed almost half an hour, while my wife & kids did some shopping in metro.
It was quite and the entire row of shops were hoarded and painted white.
The walkway of metro where there were doing promotions, there were hardly any customers shopping there. Suria Sabah is lacking of variety of outlets.
There was not even 1 entertainment outlets apart from Metrojaya and other shops. Unlike Suria & other complex in kk, 1Borneo has more varieties and has done a wonderful Christmas deco that can rival malls in peninsula such as Pavilion, Mid Valley, 1Utama & Sunway Pyramid.
The Festive ambience is good and all of it customers having spending mood as I myself did lots of shopping that day.
A lot of tourist thronging the mall from neighboring countries, my family who came down was finding it difficult to check in to the hotels at 1Borneo because the four hotels were all fully booked.
When I was there on Sunday with my family I was shocked as the entire malls car park was full.
I was so surprised that 1Borneo have improved within a year so much by studying all aspects to boost up their varieties of outlets.
There was couple of new shops just opened like Hai ho, Kaison and more entertainment outlets like the Archery centre and KBox ktv.
Do visit and compare it yourself as there is so much of improvements have taken place. I was also told by my family that when they were in the airport in KLIA there was 1Borneo’s Billboard and TV advertisement at the boarding gate, Kudos to 1Borneo for exposing KK as 1 of the premier shopping destination in east Malaysia.
hi, i’m looking for variety of scarves (tudong). If in KL u cud go to jalan tungku abd rahman, hw about in KK?
where i can find levis 511?I’m from tawau,at tawau can i get here?which one the shop?
The Levis shop is on the ground floor at the Kinabalu Mall section, just opposite to the entrance of Metro Jaya. Happy Shopping.
ha ha … Nice place to hang out.
Hope the management can bring more exciting shops to the mall.