The Sy group’s mall development arm SM Prime Holdings Inc. will open five malls this year with a gross floor area (GLA) close to 400,000 square meters.

SM Prime CFO Jeffrey Lim said the five malls will include SM Masinag; SM San Fernando, Pampanga; SM Apalit, wherein the company bought an existing mall/property with floor area of 20,000 square meters; SM Consolacion, Cebu; and SM Dasmariñas. Meanwhile, SM’s mall in Sucat will be expanded as they will get more property in the area.

Lim added that in terms of number, SM will launch the most number of malls this year. However, in terms of GLA, SM launched the most in 2006 as it included Mall of Asia.

The Sy-led company earlier announced that they will invest more than P20 billion in capital expenditures for the year.

Recently, SM has started construction of SM Dasmariñas, SM Davao, which will have an IMAX Cinema, and SM General Santos City with a floor area of 80,000 square meters wherein the latter two will be opened by 2012.

For SM Dasmariñas, Lim said it will have a semi basement for vendors. “We’ll have ground floor, either hypermarket with some food stands (while the) second floor will be for third party tenants (and the) top floor will be parking,” he said.

Lim added that the 30,000-square meter mall with three storeys will have the public market vendors on the basement. He also said they have not decided on the name of the mall but it will be opened on the last quarter of 2011.

The P500-million public market project is a partnership between the company and the local government unit (LGU) of Dasmariñas. “It’s actually an effort for both parties to try to see how we can help in terms of the development. On top of that, they’ll get more tax with the way SM runs,” Lim said.

Lim added that SM will pay the LGU the rental of the property and will improve the service and quality we will be able to maintain the area.

The company CFO said they will look for more public market projects depending on their first public market project. “Moving forward, we’ll see other locations,” he said. Meanwhile, he said SM’s Fort Bonifacio project is going to be a big project.