SM opens 50th mall

MANILA, Philippines - SM Prime Holdings Inc., the integrated property firm of the Sy family and one of the largest property developers in Southeast Asia, has recently opened SM Center Angono in Rizal, its 50th mall in the Philippines.

The 41,481 square-meter (sqm) mall brings the total floor space of SM Prime to 6.4 million sqm of retail area in a span of less than three decades.

SM Angono, located in the “Arts Capital of the Philippines”, is the third SM mall in Rizal province after SM City Masinag and SM City Taytay.

SM Prime said the new mall would feature the biggest supermarket in the municipality through Savemore and would also feature SM mainstays like Ace Hardware, Watsons and BDO.

“We are committed to continue our expansion towards the provincial areas which remains our strategic direction in the Philippines,” SM Prime president Hans T. Sy said.

SM Prime built its very first mall in 1983 on North EDSA, considered as Metro Manila’s main thoroughfare.

SM founder Henry Sy, Sr. developed a then-vacant swamp into a mall and turned it into what is now one of the most popular and iconic brands in the country.

SM North EDSA mall, which opened in 1985 with a gross floor area (GFA) at that time of 125,000 sqm, now draws a foot traffic of about 400,000 per day.   

“In almost 30 years, SM Malls have become an important element in every community. We will also continue to expand and improve the look and feel of our existing malls to keep them current and exciting for our customers,” Sy said.

Among its 50 malls, three are included on the world’s 10 largest malls, one of which includes SM North EDSA.

The other two are SM Megamall and SM Mall of Asia. Together, these three malls alone have a combined GFA of 1.4 million sqm.

SM opened SM Megamall in EDSA Mandaluyong in 1991 with only 331,680 sqm. of floor area.