SM to put up premier mall in Taguig, five more malls in Mindanao Monday, October 1, 2012
Business Mirror By Manuel T. Cayon / Reporter DAVAO CITY—Saying that Mindanao’s potential to turn in revenues has been overlooked in the corporate planning, SM Prime Holdings said it has lined up five more malls in the next few years in Mindanao, after putting up its fifth premier or luxury shopping mall here.
The sixth premier mall would return to the Metro Manila area in Taguig, early next year.
Hans T. Sy, president of SM Prime Holdings Inc., said the four SM malls in Mindanao – two in Davao City, one in General Santos City and one in Cagayan de Oro City – had been chipping in six to eight percent of total revenues of the chain of SM supermalls in the country.
He said two more would be constructed next year and finished in two years, in a phase that would approximate the SM foray in China, which has four malls, like in Mindanao. One would be constructed in Butuan City, which would be like the other supermalls, with an area of 90,000 square meters, and the other in Cagayan de Oro City, which would be a multilevel building to compensate for the smaller area of only 1.7 hectares.
The second mall in Cagayan de Oro City would be mixed use, he said, “also a mall but the rest for call centers, commercial and other use.” Each mall would cost P2 billion.
Sy would not disclose yet the details of the next batch of three malls, saying that the locations were still being evaluated.
“We are taking a serious look and making an aggressive plan for Mindanao. We have overlooked this place and although we would not say that we are late,” he said.
On Friday, the SM Lanang Premier opened to a sellout crowd, with the city and Davao Region’s elite seldom seen in public functions turning for the event, and where some of the world’s famous brands also opening up their stores.
He said that the construction of a premier mall here “signifies that Mindanao is primed for world class retail operation.” The other four premier malls are the Mall of Asia, Megamall, North Edsa and South Mall. After Taguig’s Aura Mall, the seventh would be the one that would be constructed in the SRP (South Road Properties) in Cebu.
Sy said its venture into China was “still in its infancy stage.”
“We still have four malls there, same as here in Mindanao, and we would be opening up one mall each year,” he said.
