SM moves closer to start P100-B Future City development

MANILA, Philippines — The Sy family’s SM Group has moved a step closer in implementing its ambitious P100 billion reclamation project, dubbed as Future City, which will rise in a 600-hectare property spanning the cities of Pasay and Parañaque.

The conglomerate recently obtained an Environmental Compliance Certificate, a requirement to be able to proceed with the project, sources said.

The SM Group hopes to proceed with the project in the middle of the year.

“With an ECC, it’s almost 90 percent approved,” said a source close to the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA), the government agency in charge of reclamation projects in the country.

Sources, however, said they are still completing the requirements.

“In the ECC, there are conditions that we have to comply with. We hired technical planners, dredging experts. We are there in that stage. Hopefully by the middle of the year, we can have the notice to proceed,” a source told The STAR.

The P100 billion reclamation project is an integrated 600-hectare development that is envisioned to be complete with everything a city should have.

The project will have commercial and residential components.

The SM Group earlier contracted New-York listed firm Aecom Technology Corp., one of the world’s largest engineering companies, for the project’s master planning.

The project involves the reclamation and development of roughly 600 hectares of land in both Pasay and Parañaque.

The whole project is going to take an estimated three to five years to reclaim the land, sources said.

Development of the 100-hectare Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay started way back in early 1990s but the mall only opened in 2006. MOA is considered among the biggest malls in the world.

According to the PRA, the Las Piñas - Parañaque coastal bay project involves the reclamation of shallow portions of Manila Bay in the southwest of Manila.

Las Piñas City has 431.71 hectares under its jurisdiction, while Parañaque City has 203.43 hectares.

“This 635.14 hectare project is intended to be a government center, residential, industrial, educational and commercial zone. It is bounded by Asia World Properties in the north, and the municipality of Bacoor, Cavite in the south,” the PRA said.