S

yauki, a 39-year-old Bandung resident, was sitting at the Baywalk Mall'€™s waterfront area in Pluit, North Jakarta, on one afternoon, his enjoyment of Jakarta Bay somewhat diminished by his unmet expectations of the area'€™s scenery.

He, along with his 37-year-old wife and four sons, had travelled almost 200 kilometers to North Jakarta from Bandung, West Java, to visit his relatives in Tanjung Priok and take his four young children to swim at a beach. Unfortunately the place did not meet his expectation.

'€œI thought it was a beach, a seashore like Ancol [Carnival Beach]. The boys wanted to swim actually,'€ he said, adding that his relatives were also unaware that it wasn'€™t a beach.

Baywalk Mall is a shopping center located in Pluit, North Jakarta, managed by PT Kencana Unggul Sukses, a subsidiary of giant developer Agung Podomoro Land.

The 103,500-square meter mall facing the North Jakarta bay has been open to the public since October 2013, and was the first shopping mall in Jakarta with a waterfront area.

Baywalk Mall Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ellen Hidayat told The Jakarta Post recently that the mall, which is worth Rp 1 trillion (US$72.3 million) in total investment, aimed at providing visitors with ocean scenery to enjoy while shopping and hanging out.

A long fence marks the boundary between the bay and the waterfront, meaning that visitors cannot touch the water. However, the can enjoy the sea view and take pictures.

Jocelyn, an 18-year-old resident of Kemang, South Jakarta said she had come to the mall several times, either with friends or family.

'€œIt'€™s different from other malls in Jakarta,'€ she said after taking a group photo with her friends using a '€œselfie stick'€, popularly known as a tongsis, an abbreviation of tongkat narsis, which translates as narcissism stick.

Another visitor, Suhardi, a 52-year-old resident of Pantai Indah Kapuk in North Jakarta, said that the mall'€™s concept is better than beaches like Ancol Beach City and Marunda Beach. '€œAll the beaches in Jakarta are dirty and poorly maintained. Here I can enjoy the sea scenery,'€ he told The Jakarta Post.

Unlike Baywalk mall, visitors can swim at Ancol Beach City, a commercial site located at Carnival Beach in Ancol, North Jakarta, which is managed by city-owned developer PT Pembangunan Jaya Ancol.

However, it comes with an entrance fee of Rp 25,000 per person. Those with vehicles have to pay an additional Rp 20,000 for a car or Rp 15,000 for a motorcycle. For beachgoers who do not wish to pay, Jakarta also has Marunda beach in Cilincing, North Jakarta, a free public beach.

Both Ancol and Marunda beaches still attract tourists from outside Jakarta despite their heavily polluted water. Jakarta'€™s coastal area has rapidly deteriorated in the last few years.

Yayat Supriyatna, an urban planning expert at Trisakti University, said it was good for Baywalk Mall to provide free public space.

However, he said that the pay system also had benefits because it could, at the least, force people to be aware of the cleanliness of the area. '€œIf it'€™s free entry, the management should at least impose sanctions on those who do not keep the environment clean,'€ he said.

Yayat added that Jakarta had almost no free public beaches left. '€œJakarta is a coastal city that does not have a coast,'€ he said, adding that most of Jakarta'€™s coastal areas have become warehouses and boatyards. (foy)