A crowd puller. Review on Centre One, Mumbai

My first visit to center one was about a year back when I was new to Navi Mumbai.It happened to be on one of the typical sundays and I needed a break from monotonous domestic chores.So I landed up in Vashi, which happened to be happening place, a commercial hub, real estate nightmare (for customers) tuk tuk tuk.I was delighted that the mall was just about at 5 minutes walk from railway station towards commercial hub of VASHI, that's sector 17.Is surrounded by Pune-Mumbai express highway one side while palm beach road sneaks through its backyard.

Ofcourse the tradition of being made to stand in queue was being religiously follwed at the entry-door, the check point being so close to entry stairs, that an elderly couple found it quite uncomfortable to balance themselves among enthusiastic shoppers already queued to enter the mall.But I noticed something which delighted me.The mall had taken care of disabled and elderly by having a sliding flat surface at the entry right adjacent to stairs, a nice example of universal design. But I wonder if the designer had in mind anything about spatial wastage while designing the curves?

Anyways, the ground floor had (still has) a Food Bazar, one-dollar store, 9to9 pick up joint, mobile shoppee, few other gift shops where you could buy gifts for the whole family (right from a tweeny toddler to your elderly mother in law).But I was in for a good surprise when I saw a small book-shop tucked in one of the corners at the egress near parking bay. Right adjacent was (is) a candy joint, thought of shuffling through my favourite book of the week while s*cking on a juicy candy was a welcoming thought.But I noticed that the book store was suffering from a serious shortage of collection (may be because of shortage of storage space) but had a good collection of magazines.When I was about to climb stairs (sliding ones), I just then noticed our own Mr. McDonald distributing sweet sweet ice creams on ground floor.How can some one miss on to him ? Its serious offence and breach of manners.So I quickly picked a Mc-delight and rushed on to catch up with window shopping on first floor (most of the visitors does same, so its less embarassing)..the range of merchandise ranges from Indian Terrain (though I could not find any of the Indian colors...not even saffron, green, white !!!) to adidas (just a look at price tags will force you into a sporty run).The colection at pantaloons is best described as "Classics" (euphesim for out of fashion) though some of the stuff at ladies section (beloh !!! They have one full storey dedicated to home makers)..second floor offers a ready opportunity to home makers to exhaust gentle-men's pocket of shopping.Has complete range from their most prized and secretive possessions(No hints ...smart guesses) to ones which they love flaunting (home accessories, curtains, bed sheets etc..)..Though I was spared this torture of wonderful safari through numerous lip-stick/bangles selling joints as I had consciously decided to enter the unknown land first on my own without company.

Finally when I was done with taking eye-candies at second floor, it was time to move on to the top-the food court, Heaven for conaisure of good food, the food court can boast to be one profitable (i wonder if its the only one that is profitable) floor, from ccd (al time favourite) to sub-way (on top most floor !!!), to naturals ice cream (good one) to just paranthas (somebody take them to punjab and make them eat pranthas at road side dhabas) to dosa's (nice dosas huh !)....everybody can enjoy their meals.Only problem being that on a typical sunday the crowd exceeds the sitting space.But you can't blame it on designers, that's the burden which center one is balancing on its reputation of being first mall in the vicinity.

Now when two other malls have come across in same location, crowd at center one is expected to ease down on otherwise the lonely hang out joint.But one may say that for a quick eye wash, the place is complete family retreat joint..for shopping..well it depends from individual to individual

https://centeronemall.com/#

So, be ready to be pushed-pulled, shoved around, walks on narrow escalators, everything said and done the designers take pride in the fact that the store was designed keeping POPULATION's requirements in mind..I wished they should have kept POPULATION in mind....