Core Pacific City

Coordinates: 25°2′53″N 121°33′44″E / 25.04806°N 121.56222°E

Core Pacific City

Core Pacific City, also known as the Living Mall (Chinese: 京華城) is a shopping center in Taipei, Taiwan, and has a total floor space of 204,190 square meters.[1] Built in 2001, the structure is a complex of two buildings - an L-shaped building which contains specialty boutiques connected to a sphere which contains the Mira Department Store. The complex consists of 12 above-ground stories and 7 underground levels. When it first opened, the mall was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.[2] As one of the first of several large-scale malls in Taiwan, Core Pacific's planners expected it to change local consumer behavior to Western-style one-stop shopping.[3]

During the mall's development and construction, it was touted as the world's first truly 24 hour mall and Asia's first "city within a city" complex.[4] Core Pacific's total 19 story height is attributed to Taiwan's extremely expensive land costs.[5] The sphere, considered to be Core Pacific's most dominant and visible feature, is 11 stories tall and clad in granite imported from Finland, while the L-shaped portion features granite from Spain.[6] The mall's architects were the Jerde Partnership and Artech, Inc.[7] Jerde won the 2002 Gold Nugget Special Award of Excellence at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference/Western Building Show for its effort.[8] The engineering firm Arup was also recognized in 2002 for its work on the mall with a Structural Engineering Association of California Award for Excellence.[9]

Before Core Pacific opened in 2001, its management had been fined by the Taipei city government for failing fire safety inspections. Further fines were levied when the mall opened to the public without actually first obtaining an operating license.[10] In February 2002, a fire at the mall required the evacuation of 20,000 people. The fire was determined to be arson, and in July 2002 former Core Pacific official Lin Chang-cheng (林長成) was convicted of the crime along with two others, Wang Lin-kwun (王林坤) and Lin Ching-chi (林清吉). Losses were estimated at NT$12 million.[11] The opening of Taipei 101's mall in 2003 was expected to affect the revenues of Core Pacific's tenants, although less severely than at other malls due to Core Pacific's lower price points.[12] In 2004, the mall's management company was cited by Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission for unfair trade practices relating to a gift certificate promotion campaign.[13]

In Popular Culture

Transportation

The shopping center is accessible within walking distance of the Taipei Metro. Nanjing Sanmin Station is about 500 m to the north and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station is about 1200 m to the south.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Taipei Shopping | iExplore.com
  2. ↑ ,
  3. ↑ http://taiwanjournal.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=14061&CtNode=118
  4. ↑ Shopping Centers Today
  5. ↑ Shopping Centers Today
  6. ↑ Taiwan retail complex is clad in Finnish granite. | Stone World (October , 2002)
  7. ↑ Portfolio [ Corporate & Institutional ]
  8. ↑ Jerde : Awards
  9. ↑ Structural Engineering Association of California Awards for excellence | Arup
  10. ↑ Taipei Times - archives
  11. ↑ ,
  12. ↑ Shopping Centers Today
  13. ↑ Core Pacific City Co., Ltd. committed an obviously unfair act sufficient to affect trading order in violation of the law by its incomplete disclosure of information concerning the use of and restrictions on gift certificate redemption in a promotional campaign

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Core Pacific City (Living Mall).