Penang Plaza
shopping mall in George Town, Penang
Penang Plaza is a shopping mall within George Town in the Malaysian state of Penang. Located at Burmah Road within the city's Central Business District (CBD), the 10-storey 138,222 sq ft (12,841.2 m2) retail complex was the city's first shopping mall. Completed in 1982, it comprises three retail floors, a seven-storey tower that accommodates offices and maintenance spaces, and 88 car park bays.
The mall serves as an annexe to the adjacent Hotel Royal. Giant is the main anchor tenant of the mall, which has experienced declining footfall due to the emergence of newer shopping malls throughout the city.
History
Penang Plaza was built in 1982, making it the first shopping mall in Penang. It preceded the completions of Komtarα and Island Plazaβ, although GAMA Supermarket & Departmental Store had been opened in 1967. Penang Plaza, Komtar and GAMA emerged as the three primary shopping destinations of George Town by the late 1980s.
Both the mall and the adjacent 21-storey Dorsett Penang Hotel were owned by local real estate company Faber Kompleks. The hotel was managed by Dorsett Hospitality International, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Far East Consortium.
“Penang Plaza” enters the record as shopping mall in George Town, Penang. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Penang, Plaza and shopping can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Penang Plaza” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Penang, Plaza and shopping provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 20, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q130389088. Authority coordinates are 5.421, 100.325. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1982 and 1967.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Penang Plaza” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.