XIAMEN, China – SM Prime Holdings has added Tian Jin to the list of Chinese cities where it will put up malls.

Tian Jin, latest addition after Su Zhou, Chin Qing and Shandong, will host a mall much bigger than the iconic Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

For the four malls, SM Prime, will be spending RMB3.58 billion (P23.63 million), according to Annie Garcia, SM Shopping Center Management Corp. president.

Diane Dionisiom SM Prime China projects vice president for finance, said SM Tian Jin, conceptualized to be the company’s biggest mall, will have 530,000 sq.m. gross leasable space against Mall of Asia’s 409,000 sq.m.

SM Tian Jin will be built on a 43-hectare lot and will have a footprint of around three hectares, approximately the size of three football stadiums.

SM Tian Jin is seen to cost RMB2 billion with construction expected to be finished by 2012. SM Tian Jin marks SM Prime’s first entry into a big city in China. Its current malls are in Xiamen, Jinjiang and Chengdu.

Tian Jin is about an hour by car from Beijing and is one of the four biggest cities in China that include Beijing and Shanghai, according to Dionisio.

SM Suzhou will cost RMB450 million and will have a gross leasable area of 73,000 sq. m.

SM Chongqing, set to open next year, will have 150,000 sq. m. of gross leasable space and will cost RMB500 million while SM Shandong will cost RMB630 million and have an area of 170,000 sq. m.

Danny Ngao, assistant vice president for leasing in SM’s China regional headquarters, said SM Xiamen enjoys 100 percent occupancy while the malls in Jinjiang and Chengdu have occupancy rates of about 92 percent.

Garcia added that they continue to negotiate for new mall sites, including one in Foochou, the capital of Fujian province. SM Prime on September 25 opened the RMB330 million SM Lifestyle Center, just across the street from SM Xiamen.

Mall manager Marcus Dee said the new mall, which caters to a more upscale market consisting of the middle-upper class, has 110,000 sq. m. of gross leasable area in three buildings. The SM Lifestyle Center is already 80 percent occupied and is expected to end the year with an occupancy rate of 90 percent once more stores open in time for the change into the winter season.

SM Investments Corp., the mother company of SM Prime Holdings, is joining the real estate investment trust (REIT) bandwagon, eyeing to put into a REIT portfolio some of the hotels it owns and those set for completion.

SM Investments chief finance officer Jose Sio said the company is eyeing to put about seven hotels into the conceptualized REIT portfolio.

On the list are SM’s Taal Vista Hotel in Tagaytay; the under construction designer hotel Pico Sands in the group’s Hamilo Coast project in Batangas; the newly-completed Radisson Blu Hotel in Cebu, and; the hotel to be constructed in the Mall of Asia complex. SM Investments is also eyeing the putting up of a chain of bargain hotels.

Sio did not specify how much SM Investments plans to raise through REIT or identify the adviser.

SM Prime Holdings is eyeing a $500 million REIT, tapping Macquarie and CLSA as financial advisers.