SM Prime Holdings, Inc., is set to open a new mall in Bacolod City on March 2.  The mall, named SM City Bacolod, has a gross floor area of 59,023 square meters spread across two buildings, and is located in the city’s reclamation area.  It will be the company’s 28th mall nationwide and its third mall in the Visayas after Iloilo and Cebu.  SM Prime Holdings President Hans Sy said Bacolod was an attractive spot for a mall.

‘The city currently hosts se-veral multinational [business process outsourcing] and [information and communications technology] companies. Furthermore, it has a vibrant tourism industry… these attributes make Bacolod city an ideal and suitable location for an SM Prime mall.’ 

The new mall will also include an SM Department Store with 13,150 square meters of space and an SM Hypermarket with 13,133 square meters of space, including a selling area of 11,290 square meters.  The company last year opened SM City Sta. Rosa, SM City Clark, SM Supercenter Pasig, SM City Lipa and SM Mall of Asia.

This year, the company is scheduled to open SM Taytay, SM Muntinlupa and the Sunset Strip near SM Mall of Asia.  It is also expanding its Cebu, Pampanga and Fairview malls. It will also open one or two more department stores, two to four more supermarkets and two to three more hypermarkets. 

SMIC plans to spend P20 billion this year for expansion, including P7 billion for its mall operations, P7 billion for pro-perty development, and P2 billion on its retail business.