Boosters say this mall complex will jumpstart the economy in an area decimated by Ebola and war.
... But longtime locals and entrepreneurs wonder what will be left for them.
TSMO Investment Corp, a Chinese construction company, has come to town to build T M Mall. Liberia’s first Western-style shopping complex, the glass structure is just a stone’s throw down the beach. Developers have their sights set on a Cold Stone Creamery franchise and H&M. They confirmed to CityLab that Zara had signed on—not the Spanish mega-chain, but a Monrovia retailer whose storefront touts Zara’s logo and those of several other international brands. The Nigerian cinema giant Silverbird has landed Liberia’s first state-of-the-art movie theater in TM Mall, complete with Blade Runner posters and the smell of fake butter. As locals speculate about what will actually fill the mall, expansion plans are afoot for a boardwalk that will run square across the beach ....
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Years before they started construction on the mall, Rasta recalls, contractors began stopping by. “The Chinese people used to come on the beach on Sundays, sometimes Fridays, which are beach days. They came around and asked a lot of questions.” Lawyers and businessmen came too, he says. The gist of their message: People are coming ‘round here bringing billions of dollars. Time to move along.
While street selling is technically illegal in Monrovia, Rasta has paperwork showing that Pan Afrikan Beach Club was a registered, tax-paying business. But when the land-owner signed on with developers, they lost the space.
“They were building the mall while they were trying to move us,” Rasta says. A couple of months ago, as T.M Mall was finishing up construction, contractors came down to Pan Afrikan Beach Club and started handing out cash. For a total of $7,800 split five ways, says Rasta, they succeeded. It was far less than they had spent on the place over five years, but most of his partners were too broke to resist the up-front paycheck.
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