Beautiful But Unfinished: The Exchange TRX
While TRX City Park is great, some parts of the mall have unfinished ceilings, broken tiles, and exposed wiring.
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The newly opened The Exchange TRX Mall has been the talk of the city when it opened its doors on 29 November, but during a chance visit to the mall the next day, TRP found that perhaps they should have waited another week.
This is because while the mall boasts of having 400 of the world’s leading retailers and an impressive 10-acre TRX City Park, the lower floors of the mall especially gave a remarkably bad first impression.
First, the positives
The mall itself really does have many high-end stores, many of which are new to Malaysia and, generally speaking, floors G and up are quite nice, even if some shops and areas appear unfinished.
The design and layout of the mall are quite beautiful and thoughtful, and with generously wide walking spaces the mall is a pleasure for window shoppers and shoppers alike to explore.
Additionally, the Christmas decor was up during our visit and we saw many people taking pictures even though it was a workday.
Even more impressive is TRX City Park which has loads of places for families to sit together and enjoy the greenery, and includes helpful little placards naming the various plants on display.
The park also has a very interesting-looking multi-level playground with a water fountain and water play area, along with a cave-like area for children to climb and play inside as parents watch through a rope mesh.
It’s likely that the park and playground will be very popular for families over the coming months and hopefully years, provided it is well-maintained.
It’s not all good, though
However, as mentioned, the lower levels of the mall especially seem unfinished.
Firstly, entering the parking lot took longer than expected as there was a queue that extended into Bulatan Pandan itself.
When we entered, the mall appeared to be recovering from a power cut as lights came on and parking attendants voiced their relief.
However, when it came to actually parking, the overhead available parking indicators weren’t working and while counters outside of the mall said there were plenty of spaces available, the parking lot itself was almost full.
Then when we entered (from B2 Welcome Hall A, and made our way to B1), we noticed large puddles of dried paint or plaster, dusty escalators and walls, broken tiles, and unfinished ceilings.
Some of the escalators had broken down and even some of the lifts didn’t seem to be working, or at least the buttons didn’t light up when we pressed them.
We also saw some exposed wiring near some lifts and under some escalators, as well as hanging from the ceiling. While we trust and hope none of those wires were live, they were still an ugly sight to behold.
Additionally, some areas of the mall were noticeably warm when we arrived and we were later told that the air-conditioning had broken down and just come back online.
Our colleague (who arrived earlier) also complained of having to walk around for a while to relieve himself as many toilets couldn’t or hadn’t been flushed.
TRP has reached out to The Exchange TRX for comment on these matters but we have yet to receive a reply.
So much potential
While many of the negative issues are cosmetic or can be chalked up to teething problems or work-in-progress, once that bad first impression happened, all the other stuff stood out even more.
That said, TRX City Park is genuinely pleasant and it is a positive addition to the city while will probably become a legitimate and popular landmark for those living in KL and a must-see for those visiting our great city.
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