Urban Retail Study
Understanding your city from a retail point of view!
City: Mumbai – Lower Parel (W)
Mumbai – Lower Parel(W)
Mumbai, India’s biggest cosmopolitan, has something for everyone. It is mini-India; as diverse yet united by the ‘Mi Mumbaikar’ factor. So then, which part of Mumbai am I going to take you to requires me to take you first to the past of that area in order for you to appreciate what it is today.
My dad being a bank officer gets transferred from one place to another place every 8 years. And thus came about our exodus from Chennai to Mumbai when I was in class 3. So we landed up in bankers’ quarters ‘NESTLE APTS’ right next to the then famous ‘Bombay Dyeing Mills’ in Lower Parel, Mumbai. At that time the only high-rise building in the vicinity was NESTLE APTS and middle class bankers stayed there. Lower Parel is well-known for textile mills. In fact it used to be our childhood fascination to go to the terrace and count as many mills as our eyes could see. Some of the famous mills in the area are Bombay Dyeing Mills, Kamala Mills, Century Mills and Phoenix Mills. Lower Parel is hence pre-dominantly a lower middle class mill workers’ area till this date. But the present day Lower Parel is a totally different landscape. Most of the mills are shut down due to them being ‘sick’. Many of them have been torn down and new buildings/constructions are coming up. The Phoenix mills have undergone a radical change and ‘Hi Street Phoenix’ mall has taken its place. In place of Bombay Dyeing Mills, the high-end ‘HARD ROCK CAFÉ’ stands tall. Weekends are jam packed with celebrities and it is difficult to get parking space adjacent to Hard rock café. The chawls and slums that proliferated the roads of Lower Parel have mostly been cleare ...