Three major commercial projects are selling shop space in Lahore right now. Prime ground floor runs PKR 85,000 per square foot at The Cube, PKR 77,000 at Bahria Sky 2 and PKR 75,000 at Icon Mall & Towers. A 13% spread, close enough that the ground floor is not where this decision gets made.
It gets made one floor up, where the three stop resembling each other completely. And it gets made on footfall, which each building generates in a different way.
We sell all three, so we have no reason to push you toward one. Every rate below comes from the official payment plans and developer rate cards. Where something is not published, we say so.
At a Glance
| Icon Mall & Towers | The Cube | Bahria Sky 2 | |
| Location | Ring Road, Bahria Interchange | Etihad Town Ph 1, Raiwind Road | Bahria Orchard Phase 4 |
| Developer | Athar Associates | Athar Associates | OZ Developers |
| Ground floor | PKR 75,000/sq ft | PKR 60,000–85,000/sq ft | PKR 59,500–77,000/sq ft |
| First floor | PKR 45,000/sq ft | PKR 50,000–65,000/sq ft | PKR 50,000/sq ft |
| Second floor | PKR 37,500/sq ft | — none | PKR 33,000/sq ft |
| Third floor | — none | — none | PKR 30,000/sq ft |
| Food court | PKR 65,000/sq ft | Not offered | 4th floor, 70–380 sq ft |
| Entry ticket | [[ not published ]] | PKR 19,800,000 | PKR 4,158,000 |
| Retail depth | 3 floors | 2 floors | 4 floors |
| Anchor above | Royal Swiss hotel | Faletti’s Grand Hotel | Residents + Sky Medical Centre |
| Signed tenants | 10 hospitality MOUs | 7 retail brands | Sky Medical Centre |
| Guaranteed return | None | None | None |
Ground Floor: A 13% Spread
Ranked by rate, every published ground-floor tier looks like this:
- The Cube, Main Boulevard Raiwind Road — PKR 85,000 per sq ft
- Bahria Sky 2, Main Boulevard — PKR 77,000
- Icon Mall & Towers — PKR 75,000
- Bahria Sky 2, 60-foot road facing — PKR 69,500
- The Cube, Etihad Town view — PKR 60,000
- Bahria Sky 2, standard — PKR 59,500
What that list actually tells you
Prime frontage has a market price. Between PKR 75,000 and PKR 85,000, wherever you buy it. Nobody is dramatically cheaper or dearer at street level. Icon Mall is the cheapest of the three at street level. At PKR 75,000 it undercuts The Cube by 12% for a position on the Ring Road with more than 5,000 vehicles an hour passing.
Two of the three sell a cheaper rear tier. The Cube discounts Etihad Town view units by 29%; Bahria Sky 2 discounts standard units by 23%. If a rate is quoted without telling you which way the unit faces, that is your first question.
The Real Decision Happens One Floor Up
This is where the three separate.
| Project | Ground | First | Second | Third |
| Icon Mall & Towers | PKR 75,000 | PKR 45,000 | PKR 37,500 | — |
| The Cube (Main Blvd) | PKR 85,000 | PKR 65,000 | — | — |
| The Cube (Etihad view) | PKR 60,000 | PKR 50,000 | — | — |
| Bahria Sky 2 (Main Blvd) | PKR 77,000 | PKR 50,000 | PKR 33,000 | PKR 30,000 |
1. Icon Mall — the steepest discount in the comparison
A 40% drop from ground to first floor. At PKR 45,000 per square foot it is the cheapest first floor of the three, and it comes in the building that already has the cheapest ground floor.
A discount that size is either an opportunity or a warning. Which one depends entirely on whether anything pulls shoppers upstairs and at Icon Mall, something does. More on that below.
2. The Cube — premium rate, no depth
The smallest discount and the shortest building. First floor falls only 24% on the boulevard side and 17% on the Etihad Town side. There is no second or third retail floor at all, everything above is hotel. So The Cube is a two-floor proposition at the highest rates in the comparison, with no cheap tier to enter on. The cheapest published unit is PKR 19,800,000.
3. Bahria Sky 2 — the only building that goes deep
Four retail floors, down to PKR 30,000 per square foot. The second and third floors are the cheapest commercial space here by a wide margin, under half of anything The Cube offers. It is also the only one with a low entry ticket. PKR 4,158,000 buys roughly 70 square feet on the ground floor, about the price of a studio apartment.
Three Buildings, Three Footfall Engines
A shop is a bet on feet walking past it. Each of these generates those feet differently, and that matters more than a few thousand rupees per square foot.
1. Icon Mall & Towers — food, leisure and Ring Road traffic
Icon Mall & Towers faces the Ring Road at the Bahria Interchange, and hotel access does not require going through Bahria Town’s gated entry. Above the retail floors sit the Royal Swiss hotel and 340-plus residential units — a captive population that eats downstairs.
All ten signed MOUs are hospitality: Swiss Flavours, Ted & Co, Swiss Café, Ticino Ristorante, Noodles & Rice, Moose Shisha Lounge, a dedicated coffee shop, The State Room, Eventives and Inspirations Pool & Gym.
What that means for your unit
This is a dining destination, not a fashion mall. That is precisely why the 40%-cheaper first floor is interesting, restaurants pull people upstairs in a way clothing rails do not. But check your neighbours fit your business. If you are not selling food or leisure, you are relying on a crowd that came for someone else’s dinner.
2. The Cube — brand-name retail on 1,600 feet of frontage
The Cube has 1,600 feet of frontage on Main Raiwind Road, a minute from the motorway interchange. Faletti’s Grand Hotel occupies floors two to six above the shops. Its seven tenants are retail rather than food: Faletti’s Grand, Limelight, Maria.B, Royal Tag, Miniso, Unze London and Second Cup.
What that means for your unit
Limelight and Maria.B are destination brands. Shoppers travel for them, and that traffic spills onto neighbouring units. It is the strongest tenant roster of the three. The ceiling is low, literally. Two retail floors, no food court, no cheap tier. You are paying premium rates for a shallow building.
3. Bahria Sky 2 — a medical anchor and the residents upstairs
Bahria Sky 2 does something neither of the others attempts: it puts a clinic in the middle of the building. The Sky Medical Centre occupies the first floor with 18 specialist departments, which is why that floor holds PKR 50,000 while the second drops to PKR 33,000. Above sits the residential tower. The fourth floor is a rooftop food court with units from 70 to 380 square feet.
What that means for your unit
Medical footfall is appointment-driven and repeat. Patients come back, they bring family, and families wait. That pattern supports pharmacies, diagnostics, opticians, cafés and convenience retail far better than general fashion. It is the only realistic first purchase here. At PKR 4,158,000 the entry is less than a quarter of The Cube’s cheapest shop.
| Want the commercial payment plans side by side? We will send the official schedules for all three, every floor, every rate, every instalment, in one PDF. No form, no email capture. Tell us which projects you want and it comes straight back on WhatsApp. WhatsApp Ahmad Yousaf — +92 313 0001189 |
The Clock Is Part of the Price
Here is something no brochure explains, and it costs buyers real money.
Off-plan instalment plans shrink. The completion date is fixed. The instalment window is not, it runs from whenever you buy until the building is finished. Icon Mall launched on a five-year plan: 10% booking, 10% confirmation, 60 monthly instalments, 20% at completion. Today the same plan runs 54 monthly instalments, because six months of the runway have already gone.
The total price has not changed. Your monthly payment has. The same 60% of the price now spreads across six fewer months, which lifts every monthly instalment by 11.1%. On a Comfort Room at PKR 13,012,500, that is PKR 130,125 a month at launch against PKR 144,583 today. The same maths applies to commercial units in the same building.
So “the plan is 4.5 years” is not a fixed feature. It is a countdown. Ask what the instalment count is this month, not what it was at launch and expect it to be shorter again next quarter.
No One Guarantees You a Rupee
If you have read about hotel room investment in Lahore, you will have seen guaranteed returns of 12 to 16 per cent. Commercial shops do not work that way, and none of these three publishes a guarantee on a commercial unit.
That is not a criticism. It is what a shop is.
You own the space and everything that comes with it. You find the tenant, negotiate the rent, and carry the vacancy. In a strong mall you capture the upside as rents rise instead of handing 40% to a hotel operator. In a weak one you own an empty unit and keep paying maintenance.
The honest framing: a hotel room is a fixed-income product with a landlord attached. A shop is an equity position in the mall’s success. Want a number you can plan around? Buy the room. Back your own judgement on location and tenant demand? Buy the shop, with your eyes open about who carries the risk.
Payment Plans Compared
| Icon Mall & Towers | The Cube | Bahria Sky 2 | |
| Booking | 10% | 12.5% | 15% down |
| Confirmation | 10% | 12.5% | 10% |
| Monthly | 54 instalments (shrinking) | 30 instalments | 30 instalments (30%) |
| Periodic | — | 6 semi-annual | 6 half-yearly (30%) |
| On completion | 20% | 20% | 15% on possession |
| Upfront cash | 20% | 25% | 25% |
Bahria Sky 2 and The Cube both ask 25% upfront across booking and confirmation. Icon Mall asks 20%, the lowest of the three. Watch the back end at The Cube. It defers 20% to completion, and on a PKR 66,300,000 boulevard shop that final payment alone is PKR 13,260,000. Plan for it.
Icon Mall publishes floor rates but not unit sizes or total prices, so no entry ticket can be quoted. Ask for those in writing before comparing it on anything but rate.
Which One Fits You?
| If you are… | Look at | Because |
| Buying your first commercial unit | Bahria Sky 2 | PKR 4,158,000 is the only entry under PKR 19 million — roughly a studio apartment. |
| Chasing the cheapest square foot | Bahria Sky 2 (2nd/3rd floor) | PKR 30,000–33,000 per sq ft, under half of anything at The Cube. |
| After prime frontage at the best rate | Icon Mall & Towers | PKR 75,000 on the Ring Road — 12% under The Cube for street-level position. |
| Hunting an upper-floor discount | Icon Mall & Towers | A 40% drop to the first floor, in the one building where dining traffic justifies the climb. |
| Backing brand-name retail | The Cube | Limelight, Maria.B, Royal Tag, Miniso and Unze London pull shoppers in. |
| Targeting pharmacy or clinic-adjacent retail | Bahria Sky 2 | The Sky Medical Centre and its 18 departments sit on the first floor. |
| Wanting food court space | Bahria Sky 2 or Icon Mall | Bahria Sky 2’s rooftop court is 70–380 sq ft. Icon Mall lists PKR 65,000/sq ft — confirm availability. |
| Sensitive to the upfront cheque | Icon Mall & Towers | 20% upfront against 25% at the other two. |
| Floor position decides everything — come and see it On a shop, which way the unit faces and what sits next to it matters more than the rate. A 29% discount for facing the wrong way is not a discount if nobody walks past. We will walk you through the actual available units at all three, on the floor plans and on site. Overseas buyers get the same walkthrough on WhatsApp video. Book a site visit — +92 313 0001189 |
Six Questions to Ask Before You Buy
- Which way does the unit face, and what is the rate for the tier below it? Both The Cube and Bahria Sky 2 sell cheaper rear tiers.
- How many monthly instalments are left this month? The window shrinks. Get the current count, not the launch figure.
- Who are the confirmed tenants on my floor — signed leases, or MOUs? An MOU is not a lease. Ask which stage each brand is at.
- What are the monthly maintenance and common-area charges? None of the three publishes these, and on commercial space they eat into net yield.
- Is there a category exclusivity on my unit? Malls often stop two tenants selling the same thing. That can protect you or limit you.
- What is the NOC and LDA approval status? None of the three publishes it. Ask for the document.
The Verdict
These three are barely competing for the same buyer, which is unusual for projects priced this closely.
Bahria Sky 2 is the accessible one. The only entry under PKR 19 million, the only second and third floors, a rooftop food court, and a medical anchor producing exactly the repeat footfall smaller retail needs. If this is your first commercial unit, start here.
Icon Mall & Towers is the value play on rate. Cheapest prime ground floor at PKR 75,000, cheapest first floor at PKR 45,000, lowest upfront cheque at 20%, and a Ring Road position with a hotel above. The catch is disclosure; no unit sizes, no prices, no entry ticket published.
The Cube has the strongest tenants and the shallowest building. Limelight, Maria.B and Unze London are brands people travel for, on 1,600 feet of Raiwind Road frontage. But retail stops at the first floor, there is no cheap tier, and the cheapest unit is PKR 19,800,000.
In one line: buy Bahria Sky 2 to get in, Icon Mall for the rate, The Cube for the brands — and remember that unlike a hotel room, nobody here is guaranteeing you a rupee.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is the best commercial shop investment in Lahore in 2026?
It depends on the floor. Icon Mall & Towers has the cheapest prime ground floor at PKR 75,000 per sq ft and the steepest discount upstairs. The Cube charges the most at PKR 85,000 but has the strongest retail tenants. Bahria Sky 2 is the only one selling second and third floors, from PKR 30,000, and the only entry under PKR 19 million.
How much does a shop cost in Bahria Town Lahore?
Ground-floor shops at Bahria Sky 2 in Bahria Orchard Phase 4 start at PKR 4,158,000 for a roughly 70 sq ft unit at PKR 59,500 per square foot. Prime Main Boulevard space is PKR 77,000 per sq ft. At Icon Mall & Towers, also in Bahria Town, the ground floor is PKR 75,000 per square foot.
What is the ground floor shop price in Bahria Town Lahore?
Bahria Sky 2 runs PKR 59,500 per sq ft for standard units, PKR 69,500 for 60-foot road facing and PKR 77,000 on the Main Boulevard. Icon Mall & Towers is PKR 75,000 per sq ft on its revised rate card. Both sit in Bahria Town Lahore.
Are shops available on installments in Bahria Town Lahore?
Yes. Bahria Sky 2 runs a three-year plan: 15% down, 10% on confirmation, 30 monthly instalments, six half-yearly instalments and 15% on possession. Icon Mall & Towers uses 10% booking, 10% confirmation, monthly instalments and 20% at completion. The Cube asks 12.5% booking, 12.5% confirmation, 30 monthly instalments, six semi-annual payments and 20% at completion.
What is the shop price per square ft at The Cube Etihad Town?
Ground floor is PKR 85,000 per square foot on the Main Boulevard Raiwind Road frontage and PKR 60,000 for Etihad Town view units. First floor is PKR 65,000 on the boulevard side and PKR 50,000 facing Etihad Town. The cheapest published shop is PKR 19,800,000 for 330 square feet.
Which Lahore mall has the cheapest commercial space?
Bahria Sky 2 has the cheapest square foot at PKR 30,000 on the third floor and the lowest entry ticket at PKR 4,158,000. Icon Mall & Towers has the cheapest prime ground floor at PKR 75,000 and the cheapest first floor at PKR 45,000. The Cube has nothing below PKR 50,000 per square foot.
Do commercial shops in Lahore come with guaranteed rental income?
No. None of these three publishes a guaranteed return on a commercial unit, unlike their hotel rooms which carry 12 to 16 per cent guarantees. As a shop owner you find your own tenant, set your own rent and carry the vacancy risk. That is the central trade-off between a shop and a hotel room.
What is the food court shop price in Bahria Town Lahore?
Icon Mall & Towers lists its food court at PKR 65,000 per square foot on its revised rate card, though earlier material described it as sold out, check current availability. Bahria Sky 2 has a rooftop food court on the fourth floor with units from 70 to 380 square feet. The Cube does not offer food court space.
Which is better, a ground floor or upper floor shop?
Ground floor captures passing footfall and commands the highest rent, which is why it costs most. Upper floors depend on destination traffic, so they need an anchor to work. At Icon Mall a first-floor unit costs 40% less than ground floor; the question is whether the tenant you can attract there earns more than that discount saves you.
Who are the confirmed brands at these Lahore malls?
The Cube has seven signed retail tenants: Faletti’s Grand, Limelight, Maria.B, Royal Tag, Miniso, Unze London and Second Cup. Icon Mall & Towers has ten hospitality MOUs including Swiss Flavours, Ted & Co, Swiss Café, Ticino, Noodles & Rice and Moose Shisha Lounge. Bahria Sky 2 is anchored by the Sky Medical Centre and its 18 specialist departments.
Why does the monthly instalment go up the longer I wait?
Because the completion date does not move. At Icon Mall the plan was 60 monthly instalments at launch and is now 54, so the same 60% of the price is spread across six fewer months. That lifts the monthly payment by about 11%. On any off-plan purchase, entering later means a shorter runway and a bigger cheque each month.
Can overseas Pakistanis buy commercial shops in Lahore?
Yes. Invenza handles NICOP or NRP documentation, you view the unit and its floor position on WhatsApp video, payment is by telegraphic transfer, and the agreement is reviewed clause by clause before signing. Floor position matters more for a shop than a flat, so insist on seeing the floor plan and what sits next door.
Talk to Invenza Group Before You Decide
We hold commercial inventory across all three, so we can show you what is actually available on each floor rather than a brochure and tell you which floor we would not put our own money into. Free consultancy, no obligation.
WhatsApp Ahmad Yousaf, CEO, on +92 313 0001189, or visit 59 Central Commercial, Bahria Orchard, Lahore.
Weighing shops against hotel rooms? Read the companion guide: Best Hotel Room Investment in Lahore 2026 — Royal Swiss vs Faletti’s Grand Hotel vs City Scape Heights.
