Spencer Plaza is one of the must visit place in Chennai. To hang out, to see the modernization, to shop, etc., But most of the people who visit this place don't know the other side of this huge historical place.
Spencer Plaza(then Spencer) was started as the south Asia's first departmental store in 1863 by Charles Durant and J. W. Spencer.
After few years the store was shifted to a new building which is example of Indo - Sarconic architecture. This departmental store continued to be the one of the biggest mall for more than 100 years when in 1985 a fire accident destroyed the entire buliding.
Followed which the present building was constructed in early 1990's by the Mangal Tirth Estate limited, a property development company owned by a group of NRI's. Recently the third phase of the plaza is opened. This third phase is built resembling the old destroyed building with huge pillars.
Now the mall has more than 600 shops of varying brandnames and number of non brabded local shops. The mall is located in the Mount Road, officially called the Anna Salai. The mall is built on the floor space of 10lakh sq ft which is the costliest real estate property in the city. (one sq ft costs around Rs. 2lakh in mount road).
This mall also provides accomodation for the offices for many MNC's and BPO's. The second phase of the mall opens its shutter at around 8.30AM for giving its way for the Landmark which has the policy of opening by 8.45AM. the other shutters remains closed for another one hour expecting a day long movement of the traffic.
Though many malls opened in the city, the glamour of this mall has not went down giving place for around 40000 people on weekdays and 60000 people on weekends to spend their time.
Spencer Plaza remains the second place for the chennai people next to the Marina to hang out.
