It’s now the height of the low season here in the Sukhumvit area and although it’s slow here, it doesn’t seem to be as bad as last year was at least according to some of the local merchants we’ve talked to recently. Last year was basically a disaster all over Sukhumvit with many businesses in the area, especially restaurants and bars seeing their volume go down as much as 50%. This year business is again down but closer to 20-25%. It’s definitely not a great situation but certainly better than 2016 and if things continue in this vein then the entire low season from May through July or August will be a much milder slowdown overall.
There’s one thing that hasn’t slowed down here, though, and that’s the building industry. New projects and new businesses continue to spring up, defying, seemingly, all rules of business logic. Soi 11 is still the busiest soi in terms of new real estate projects and new businesses opening but Soi 22 looks to have the biggest upside potential at this point if only because of the amount of land that is still undeveloped there.
And the large condo project on the corner of Sukhumvit Soi 6 is still moving briskly forward with the structure now up to about the 32nd story of a planned 42. Also on Sukhumvit Road, the proposed office tower on the corner of Soi 12 is now set to move forward as the final days of the V-8 Diner and Insanity nightclub are counting down. By the time you read this they will have both moved (same owner) to the huge building that was once next to the old Q Bar on the left fork of Soi 11. We say once next to because the Q Bar building has been razed and there is now a fairly good-sized empty lot standing on the corner. It looks like it might be big enough for a very tall, rather narrow condo but there’s been no word yet on what might be happening there.
The large building that’s beside this lot is the new Insanity and V-8 Diner location. This building had been a gentlemen’s club in one form or another for at least the last 20 years (since before the original Q Bar opened, actually) and never seemed to attract a lot of people. We’ll see how these new businesses fare there now as the grand opening was scheduled for June 29.
And almost right across the street there’s another new restaurant, a French brasserie-styled place with a stylish interior and nice woodwork. This new place takes up the space that was the ill-fated Wolff’s along with one of the shophouses that was part of Apotheka, that establishment now occupying only two shophouse spaces. This place looks like it will be open by the time you read this as well and while we couldn’t see a menu, it appears that a continental bistro/brasserie menu will be served. We’ll have more Sukhumvit news coming your way, as usual, next month.
