The Funky Town Mall, officially known as Khomas Grove Mall, is a landmark retail hub located along Andrew Kloppers and Paul van Harte streets in Khomasdal, Windhoek.
The mall maintains a moderate to high occupancy rate estimated around 80% to 85%, which features strong national anchor tenants like Woermann Brock Hyper, Choppies, Pepkor-Dunns, and key financial institutions like FNB, Standard Bank, and Nedbank ATMs.
The recent rebranding and modernisation which cost an estimated N$200 million, brought with it the provision of essential services to turn local suburb traffic, into consistent, heavy foot traffic for the mall.
Its strategic location opposite Dawid Bezuidenhout High School and the University of Namibia Khomasdal campus ensures a steady source of student consumers.
While the ground-floor retail remains fully occupied, the first- and second floor spaces periodically experience minor turnover with vacant office or restaurant spaces hit by broader economic headwinds.
The mall has struggled to fill secondary lifestyle, dining, and boutique slots.
To close this gap, the western wings of the first and second floors have been taken by Triumphant College, which runs media classes and other programmes there.
While it successfully maintains its critical anchor tenants such as Woermann Brock Hyper, Clicks Namibia and Choppies many of its smaller, specialised “line shops” have struggled, leading to consistent vacant spaces on its upper floors.
An assistant at a clothing boutique, who preferred to be known only as John, says they have been at the complex for about three years although the going has been tough.
“Other shops have closed due to high rentals but others have come in to replace them,” he says adding that the rent for some small shops ranged around N$7 000.
This was corroborated by another assistant at an events and décor shop who says business was slow, especially during the cold winter months.
“It becomes hard to survive, depending on the type of your business and some shops are forced to close,” he says, adding that if it was not for the college that had taken up space, the number of vacant shops would be high.
However Khomasdal resident Keenon Louw says he has been shopping at the complex for a long time and now finds the service there satisfactory as there are more big shops.
“I get all the stock for my take-away business and since the refurbishing of the complex, the problem of shops moving in and out has been brought under control,” he says.
Funky Town has fared better than its neighbour the Park Foods Mall, owned by the Khomas Regional Council.
This once-dilapidated mall was completely vacated for a delayed overhaul but is permanently closed as a retail mall.
Following years of tenant disputes, failed revamps, and low occupancy, it closed as a retail mall and was transformed into the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology campus.
The occupancy rates at Funky Town Mall have fluctuated significantly, sitting at a moderate to low level over recent years as shoppers heavily utilise the mall as a quick-stop destination for absolute essentials.
A significant volume of visitors go to use the banking ATMs or buy groceries and immediately leave, rather than staying to browse, which hurts foot traffic for side-line retail shops.
This has also hit even car guards who have complained of a dearth in their livelihood.
“You can see the parking bays are empty, and yet there are many of us car guards.
Sometimes the clients do not stay in the complex long enough for us to expect a decent tip,” says Pieter Voss who has been working at the carpark for two years.
There are also safety concerns haunting the complex.
Approached for comment, the manager of the complex Rebecca Woermann said she preferred not to provide comment.
