Last month, four of our engineers went to South America to provide parking and traffic engineering advice to Mallplaza. With 26 centres across Chile, Peru and Colombia the group is the largest shopping centre operator in the region.
ptc. is familiar with South American retail centres, having been previously engaged by Mallplaza and other Latin retail groups.
This time, our scope of works involves improving their parking assets with a focus on customer experience and each centre growth plan. In August, our engineers spent two weeks in Chile and Peru to conduct site visits in five shopping centres.
In our field, knowledge of local culture is definitely important. We undertook observations to analyse customer behaviour within each site and collaborated closely with the client team to make sure we accounted for their specific needs.
To make sure every detail was captured, we utilised 360o cameras during our site walks. We also carried tablets to mark up the plans and link with photos of each area of interest. Before leaving, we discussed our findings with the client to understand their point of view on the issues and solutions identified. Back in Sydney, our team will work on the design and reports knowing that every detail of the site visits can be easily checked.
Despite local particularities, there are best practice principles that are universal. A well-designed car park with logical internal circulation, for example, will always provide better customer experience, regardless of the country we are at. Our extensive experience designing car parks for different land uses, including many retail centres, can be applied anywhere in the world.
We pride ourselves on having a high rate of repeat business and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with Mallplaza again following our work at a couple of their centres in 2016.
¡Esperamos verlos pronto!
Image credit: Mallplaza