Why hasn't the second-largest city in Hunan, whose GDP ranks second only to Changsha, welcomed Wanda and Wuyue yet?
When talking about Hunan, the first thing most people think of is Changsha. This "city of internet-famous attractions" has long occupied the center of traffic and commercial resources, while Yueyang, the "second largest city in Hunan" whose total economic output consistently ranks second in the province, has a much weaker presence in urban commerce.
People's impression of Yueyang often stays on Yueyang Tower and Dongting Lake — a riverside city with rich history and beautiful scenery. However, beyond its cultural tourism label, Yueyang also has a highly important urban positioning: it is a provincial sub-central city explicitly planned by Hunan Province, and the only river port city in Hunan that connects to the Yangtze River and reaches the sea, undertaking the critical gateway function of connecting to the Yangtze River Economic Belt and integrating into the Belt and Road Initiative.
In terms of economy, Yueyang has a solid economic foundation. Taking 2025 as an example, Yueyang's GDP reached 538.7 billion yuan, ranking second in the province, with a clear quantitative advantage over Changde which ranks third (477.1 billion yuan). As the only international trade port on the Yangtze River in Hunan, Chenglingji Port relies on its unique geographical advantages to provide strong support for industrial development, and has fostered 100-billion-yuan industrial clusters covering modern chemical industry, port logistics, modern agriculture and green food processing, cultural and sports tourism, as well as advanced equipment manufacturing.
Industry is the skeleton, and commerce is the flesh and blood. This place has been an important hub for military grain transportation since ancient times. During the heyday of grain transportation on Dongting Lake, thousands of sails raced on the water and merchants gathered here. Today, for a city with such a large economic volume and industrial foundation, how is its urban commercial development? Winshang's "Small Cities, Big Markets — Special Report Series on Commercial Observations of Hunan's Sinking Market" sets its sights on Yueyang, the gateway city in northern Hunan, taking Dongmaoling-Pedestrian Street Business District, the core polar of the city, as a sample to explore the pulse and trend of the commercial market of this "second largest city in Hunan".
01.
What does the strongest business district and the best commercial facilities of the "second largest city" in Hunan look like?
In 1996, with the approval of the State Council, the former South District and Suburb were merged, and Yueyanglou District was officially established. Thirty years later, this old city with thousands of years of history not only retains profound historical heritage, but also generates vigorous modern commercial vitality, becoming the most vivid epitome of Yueyang's commercial changes.
Looking down from the air, the Dongmaoling-Pedestrian Street Business District is like the heart of the main urban area — taking the Pedestrian Street Square as the center, it radiates a dense network of commercial veins. This core area known locally as Yueyang's "Little Wangfujing" gathers the most vigorous consumption energy of the city.
Data shows that by the end of 2025, the business district has gathered more than 10 shopping malls, with an average daily passenger flow of over 50,000 people, making it the area with the highest commercial density in Yueyang. However, most of the commercial projects in the business district have been open for a long time, and their forms are still dominated by traditional department stores, pedestrian streets and specialized markets.
The decades-long evolution of the business district fully corresponds to the iteration and upgrading of Yueyang's commerce.
Stage 1: From "Three Major Shopping Malls" to "Three Leading Wholesale Markets"
In the 1970s, the embryonic form of the Dongmaoling Business District emerged. At that time, Dongmaoling Store, Nanzheng Street Department Store and Xianfeng Road Store were collectively called the "Three Major Shopping Malls" of Yueyang, which were the most popular consumption landmarks on the whole street.
After the opening of Baling Bridge in 1982, the industrial and commercial department transformed the open space under the bridge into a trade market. Relying on convenient transportation and agglomeration effect, it quickly became the largest trade market in Hunan Province, as famous as Hanzheng Street in Wuhan and Xiahe Street in Changsha, and was known as the "Three Leaders" of the wholesale industry in Hunan and Hubei provinces.
Later, Xiaolongcheng, Jiuzhou Building and other projects rose one after another, and together with the Bridge Market pushed Dongmaoling to the peak of Yueyang's commerce. In that era, there was a popular saying: "You have your LV, I have my Xiaolongcheng." In the era when entertainment options were not abundant, Xiaolongcheng was not only a paradise for shopping for goods, but also carried the leisure time of a generation of Yueyang people.
■ Xiaolongcheng: "Old Memory in the City Center" Transforms into a New Digital Landmark
As a time-honored urban landmark of Yueyang, Xiaolongcheng has witnessed the iteration and upgrading of the city's trade industry. The market was built in 1990 and officially put into operation in 1992. After three expansions and renovations, it was the most prosperous small commodity shopping center for shoes, hats and clothing in the core urban area of Yueyang in the early years, leading the consumption trend of the whole city and retaining the urban memories of several generations of Yueyang people.
With the upgrading of consumption and the rise of the e-commerce industry, the traditional offline small commodity model has been strongly impacted. Problems such as outdated hardware facilities, incomplete supporting facilities, low operation grade and messy environment have become increasingly prominent. The market has suffered long-term losses, and there are also stubborn fire safety hazards, which gradually failed to keep up with the pace of urban development and fell into a development bottleneck.
In order to revitalize the stock assets and revitalize the formats in the city center, Yueyang Urban Operation Group officially acquired Xiaolongcheng in August 2020. In 2022, Yueyanglou District Government, in cooperation with the Urban Operation Group, launched the upgrading and transformation, investing nearly 200 million yuan to build Xiaolongcheng Digital Industrial Park with a total construction area of 17,000 square meters. The industrial park was officially opened in 2023, and a number of digital technology enterprises such as Huya Live, Liyi Technology, Haohuo Network, Dreamstar, Yueyang Chiyue and Huizhi Technology signed contracts to settle in the park. So far, the former traditional small commodity old city has completed its transformation, from an old trade market to a new landmark of urban digital economy. The rebirth of Xiaolongcheng is also a typical epitome of Yueyanglou District's initiative to break through traditions and promote old city renewal.
Stage 2: From Diverse Development to Three-Dimensional Connection
Entering the 21st century, benchmark shopping malls such as Parkson, Wushang, Tianhong, Kangxing and Renhe Spring have settled in one after another, and the Dongmaoling Business District has entered a new stage of diverse development. Coupled with the continuous construction of Youa International Commercial Plaza, a prosperous pattern of diverse development has been formed, firmly occupying the position of the preferred consumption destination in Yueyang.
In 2015, the reconstruction of shantytowns in the area was launched, making valuable space for the upgrading of the business district. Relying on the dividend of urban renewal, BBK Group won the land of the former Dongfanghong Primary School to build BBK · Yueyang Xintiandi.
In 2021, the main structure of the underground civil air defense project of the pedestrian street with a total investment of about 1 billion yuan and a construction area of about 90,000 square meters was completed: the first underground floor is a commercial pedestrian street 620 meters long and 24 meters wide, and the second underground floor is equipped with more than 1,000 parking spaces. What is more valuable is that the underground corridor system connects 11 surrounding commercial projects, forming a commercial cluster with a total operating area of more than 300,000 square meters, promoting the Dongmaoling Business District to transform from a scattered planar commercial system to an interconnected three-dimensional commercial system.
■ BBK · Yueyang Xintiandi: The Top-performing "Traffic Magnet" at the Leading Position
Xiaolongcheng carries the youthful memories of the older generation, while BBK · Yueyang Xintiandi defines the consumption lifestyle of the new generation.
The project has a total construction area of nearly 150,000 square meters and a commercial area of over 80,000 square meters, which is an urban life plaza integrating fashion department stores, five-star hotels, CBD business centers, characteristic catering, cinema and leisure facilities. The shopping mall was officially opened on December 29, 2017, with a number of Yueyang's first supporting facilities: Yueyang's first borderless constant temperature swimming pool, the first IMAX giant screen cinema in the urban area, a leading parent-child interaction platform, 1000 intelligent parking spaces in the core urban area, Yueyang's first circular ramp block, a visually stunning aerial waterscape park, as well as a catering cluster with complete categories.
In order to maintain its competitiveness continuously, BBK Yueyang Xintiandi has been making continuous efforts in brand introduction: many first stores and flagship stores of brands such as FILA, Perfect Diary, Heytea, Chayanyuese, Beneunder, The North Face have settled here. The continuously updated brand matrix has kept BBK · Yueyang Xintiandi at the leading position of high-quality commercial complexes in Yueyang, and many netizens in Yueyang call it "the best shopping mall in Yueyang".
■ Youa International Commercial Plaza: A Pending Commercial Upgrading Variable
If the opening of BBK marks a "stunning" progress of Yueyang's commerce, then the rise of Youa International Plaza may indicate that Yueyang's commerce has officially entered a brand new stage of "commercial upgrading variable".
Yueyang Youa International Plaza, built with an investment of 5.5 billion yuan and a total construction area of 630,000 square meters, is positioned as a large-scale international commercial and business center, integrating multiple products such as Youa International's main store, Youa World City, office buildings, LOFT and Mini apartments. In early 2026, the construction of Phase II Building II(A) of Yueyang Youa International Commercial Plaza was successfully completed. The building has a total construction area of about 105,000 square meters, an investment of over 400 million yuan, and a building height of 268 meters. After completion, it will become a highly representative super high-rise urban complex in northern Hunan.
The project innovatively adopts the "1+1" commercial development mode, and the seven-floor commercial space is divided into two sections: the international luxury shopping center and the sky curtain pedestrian street. Relying on the original sloping terrain of the site, seven characteristic theme blocks are connected organically, breaking the spatial barrier of traditional enclosed shopping malls, and realizing the passenger flow interaction between the main store and the open blocks. After the operation of Phase II Building A, it will form complementary formats and resource linkage with Phase I, and jointly build a huge urban complex with a total volume of more than 600,000 square meters. It is worth continuing to pay attention to whether this remarkable commercial flagship can take on the banner of Yueyang's commercial upgrading.
02.
Behind the Gap:
The "Second Largest City" in Hunan Holds Huge Commercial Opportunities
In terms of economy and population, Yueyang has a solid foundation: its GDP consistently ranks second in the province, and its population size ranks sixth in the province, with high-quality fundamentals to support commercial upgrading. However, from the perspective of the matching degree between commercial supporting facilities and urban energy level, Yueyang's commerce is still relatively "conservative" on the whole, and there are obvious shortcomings in the stock commercial volume, brand richness and the settlement of leading foreign commercial operators.
According to Winshang Big Data, the scale of Yueyang's stock shopping malls and the per capita shopping mall area both rank 10th in the province — there is a gap between its commercial volume and the economic status of the "second largest city in Hunan".
What is more noteworthy is the absence of leading commercial operators. The mining potential of Yueyang's commercial market is further highlighted. At present, national large-scale chain commercial giants such as Wanda and Xincheng Wuyue Plaza have not yet settled in the market, which is still in a relatively blank state. In contrast, the local enterprise BBK settled in Yueyangqiao West as early as 2001, opening the first modern chain supermarket in Yueyang, which rewrote the city's traditional retail pattern; in 2011, BBK Plaza Yueyang Store opened, successfully fostering the emerging Huabanshan Business District; later, it settled in the city core again to build the benchmark project of Dongmaoling Business District — BBK Xintiandi, becoming the core promoter of Yueyang's commercial iteration. On the whole, the development of Yueyang's commerce is highly dependent on local Hunan enterprises, and the market competition and innovation vitality need to be further activated.
The pattern of "strong local players and weak foreign players" is directly reflected in the daily demands of consumers. On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Yueyang netizens' continuous calls for popular brands such as Domino's, Fei Da Chu, Roselena, Jidu Quan, Maiji Milk all show that the city's consumption power is already in place, but there is still huge room for improvement in brand level.
In general, Yueyang has multiple advantages in economy, population and geographical location, but its commercial level has not fully realized its urban value. Prominent problems such as the absence of leading commercial operators, insufficient brand richness and lack of trendy formats are prominent. In the future, with the continuous promotion of urban renewal and consumption upgrading, Yueyang's commerce still has great space for upgrading and market imagination.
The gap between supply and demand is exactly where the potential lies. Yueyang may be the next underestimated opportunity point.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Winshang", author: Ma Ruru, authorized for release by 36Kr.