Livelihood Reports Al Amrikeya Area - Final Assessment | Page 46

2.3.2 LAND USE & ACTIVITIES
2.3.2.1 Land Use
On the local scale, AAA consists of various in-
terrelated uses. All the six malls within the
AAA are mixed-use commercial and residential
buildings. An Import/Export Administrative
building is located at the centre of the area. On
the northern periphery, Renaissance cinema,
and a single story café and event venue called
Cascade are located. The stratification of the
malls follows the same general structure: the
ground floor and its mezzanine as well as the
first floors are always utilised as commercial
spaces while the remaining stories are mostly
residential. Although commercial activities are
reserved for the ground and first floors, many
upper floor apartment units are used as office
spaces and clinics. Some shop tenants also rent
out apartment units to be used for storage or
production purposes. Basements exist for Di-
amond Mall, Zamzam Mall, Aly al-Deen I and II
and al-Amrikiyya V. The number of stories per
mall ranges between five and eight.
The combined number of units in all the malls is
628 on the ground floor, 179 on the mezzanine,
and 546 on the first floor. On the ground floor,
the dominant land use is food and beverage at
38%, including both seated and takeaway-style
shops. The majority of these are located inside
Aly al-Deen I and II Malls and al-Amrikiyya Mall.
The second most prevalent land use is clothing
and shoes shops, which dominate Diamond and
Zamzam Malls at 17%. (Figure 15)The descrip-
tion and sub-categories of the land use catego-
ries are found in the table in (Figure 16). This
reflects the fact that food and beverage shops
prefer to be on the ground floor as it presents
the advantage of possible expansion for restau-
rants and cafes to place seats on the sidewalk
outside their shop, or to place display units to
market their products. Food and beverage out-
lets also experience a faster turnover of users
throughout the day, which is facilitated though
ground floor placement. A mezzanine floor only
exists in Zamzam and both Aly al-Deen malls,
where it is solely accessible from inside the
ground floor units and in most cases is occupied
by the same land use. On the first floor clothing
shops exceed the rest, reflecting the preference
of food and beverage outlets to remain closer
to the ground floor due to the increased possi-
bility for expansion, whereas clothing shops do
not have that requirement. Service shops are
also condensed on the first floors. Both service
and clothing outlets experience a slower flow
of customers throughout the day, wherein first
floor locations do not present a disadvantage.
The basement floor of Al-Amrikiyya V is com-
pletely utilized as a commercial space, adding
an extra level of commercial activity to the
building. The remaining basement floors, in Di-
amond, Aly al-Deen and Zamzam Malls, were
designed as car parking spaces but currently
do not function as such and are inaccessible. At
present, many of them are divided into modu-
lar units that are rented out to street vendors
as storage units.
2.3 | Built Environment Analysis
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