The city may have just found a solution to the footfall crisis malls all over are facing.Come mid-June, a fullfledged multi-specialty hospital spread over 100,000 square feet will be become functional on the fourth floor of Dreams the Mall in Bhandup, which was once touted to become Asia’s largest but is now virtually a ghost mall.Industry watchers said that in a space-starved city, this could become a win-win model for both mall owners as well as hospitals, which are always starved for space.While the hospital management was tightlipped about the rental, insiders said the money involved in leasing the space isn’t much of a factor as the managing director of the Sunrise Group Dr Nikita Trehan happens to be the daughter of Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan, executive chairman of HDIL, which owns the mall.Mumbai is in the middle of a phase where several malls have started wearing a desolate look with some retail outlet or the other are shutting shop almost every day. A recent study by Cushman & Wakefield India Private Limited found that 2.56 million square feet of space is unoccupied in 40 city malls out of a total of 16.77 million square feet. This means 15.3 per cent is vacant.Several retail outlets in malls like Atria in Worli, Milan Mall in Santacruz, Nirmal Lifestyle in Mulund, among many others have downed shutters and moved elsewhere. Even Dreams did not have any takers for its shops in the lower floors, which were then converted into offices. Only a multiplex and a gaming zone bring some crowd to the mall.The hospital, on a floor that is vacant but for a small portion rented by a bank, will change the dynamics of the mall, industry experts said. The Sunrise Group of Hospitals, which runs around 20 hospitals in the country, has almost completed work on a 230-bed facility complete with state of the art critical care units with 40 beds and five modular operations theatres, all which will be manned by 45 highly-qualified doctors.The hospital will have fully-functioning dermatology, dietetics, endocrinology, diabetology, gastroenterology, laparoscopy, cardiology and gynaecology departments, among others.“We have 20 hospitals across the country and this is the first we are opening in a mall,” said Dr Hafeez Rahman, renowned laparoscopic surgeon and chairman of the Sunrise Group. “The location was perfect. The space was exactly what we needed. The project will be inaugurated next month. Operating a hospital in a mall is a challenge we accept.”Experts said the hospital will have to figure solutions to the crowd problem, entry and exit, and possibility of patients catching infections. However, Rahman is confident that plans to tackle all these issues have been well thought out. “First, the hospital will be in the topmost floor,” he said.“We have ensured that the hospital will have a separate entry and exit. We have taken measures to block the noise from below. The facility is sealed off from the rest of the mall. We will ensure that neither patients nor mall patrons will be inconvenienced.”Real estate experts said that at a time when the mall industry is slowing down, innovative techniques like this are the only way out. At the time the Cushman & Wakefield study was released, South Asia executive managing director Sanjay Dutt had said mixed-use was the way forward for malls to regain lost ground.“Even while demand for retail space has been good, there is an obvious concern of creating the right product and having the right tenant mix,” Dutt has told this newspaper.“Developers are keen to explore mixed-use developments where shopping centre or hotels could be one of the components in addition to residential development, which ensures cash flow, addresses long term value enhancement and better returns.”