Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Despite immense ‘pressure’, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has once again refused to issue a partial completion certificate to the Centaurus Mall or to allow changes to its original design.

Consecutive meetings were held in the headquarters of the civic body last week over the issue. Mayor Islamabad Shaikh Ansar Aziz, CDA Planning and Design Member Asad Mehboob Kayani, Estate Member Khushal Khan and the owners and representatives of Centaurus Mall attended the meeting.

A well-informed source told Daily Times that an official from the Prime Minister’s Office continuously backed the request of the private mall and kept on asking the CDA to “consider it positively”.

“The owner of the mall also threatened the CDA higher ups of consequences in case of the rejection of his request. Even harsh words were exchanged during the meeting,” a person privy to the proceedings of the meetings told Daily Times.

Talking to Daily Times, Member Planning Asad Mehboob Kayani confirmed that they had reviewed the request of Centaurus Mall. “They were asking for amendments to their design to declare Tower C a hotel,” he said.

When questioned whether the CDA had rejected the request or deferred it, he said: “We asked them to bring the original design along with the proposed changes. We will discuss the issue again.” He said the CDA would follow rules and regulations.

The CDA had leased out 32,040 square yards to Pak Gulf for Rs 6 billion for the construction of a hotel, a shopping area and residential apartments. The firm completed the shopping mall and the residential apartments, but without a five-star hotel.

Sources believe that the said plot was auctioned at a controlled rate for the construction of a hotel-cum shopping mall, residential apartments and offices. “However, now the owner wants to avoid the construction of a hotel as it is a less profitable business with a static investment of billions,” sources said.

According to the CDA documents, as per its original approved design the Centaurus Mall was supposed to construct four towers — A, B, C and D. The fourth (D) was to be a 42-storey hotel tower. Towers A and B were meant for apartments while Tower C was for offices.

However, now the owner of the mega shopping mall is not interested in constructing Tower D and wants to get a permission to convert Tower C into a hotel tower, deviating from the original approved design.

The design vetting committee (DVC) have already rejected the request of Centaurus Shopping Mall and asked them to bring the case to the CDA Board for approval.

According to documents, management of Centaurus Mall made over a dozen of major changes in the original design, such as construction of 33 floors against the approved 29 storeys, increase the number of apartments from 160 to 185, raised the height from 390 to 422 feet, started operating shopping centres in the mezzanine basement, which was originally reserved for parking only, used the basement for Al-Fatah Shopping Mall and established of Monal Downtown in the plant room.

Meanwhile, an audit report of 2015-16 also stated that the Centaurus Mall had encroached on over 40 kanals of land worth Rs 10 billion. It was being run without obtaining a completion certificate from the CDA. The encroached land belonging to the CDA is being used as a parking lot.