SM Prime to start Cebu mall in 2012

MANILA, Philippines - SM Prime Holdings Inc., the country’s largest retail chain, will start the construction of its planned shopping mall within the 240-hectare South Road Properties in Cebu in 2012, according to a top company official.

SM Prime chief financial officer Jeffrey Lim said the shopping center will have a gross floor area of 250,000 square meters, making it the biggest retail complex in Visayas and Mindanao. The shopping mall would be a smaller version of the 60-hectare Mall of Asia complex along Roxas Boulevard.

SM Prime has committed to invest at least P20 billion over a 15-year period for a mixed-use development project at SRP which will include a convention center, hotels, high-rise residential condominiums, school and a hospital.

The company has offered to acquire a 28-hectare property within the SRP for P11,000 per square meter or nearly P3 billion. The SRP is a land reclamation project by the Cebu City government.

Aside from SM Prime, Filinvest Land Inc. is also developing 50.6 hectares of the SRP into a mixed-use complex. The project will be developed in four phases over a 20-year period with FLI contributing the development costs as well as the marketing and management services.

SM Prime is spending P12.1 billion this year for the opening of five new malls nationwide and one in China. Slated for opening this year are Calamba, Laguna; Masinag, Antipolo; Tarlac; Novaliches and San Pablo, Laguna which will provide a total of 279,228 square meters in gross floor area.

Three new malls in China – Chonggqing, Suzhou, and Zibo – are targeted for opening between 2010 and 2012. This will add to its three existing malls - SM Xiamen, Jinjiang and Chengdu.

SM Prime expects to have a total of 41 malls by end-2010 with total gross floor area of 4.5 to 4.8 million square meters. Its malls currently have a foot traffic of over 2.5 million per day. – Zinnia dela Peña