SM Prime pushes back opening of IKEA store to 2021

MANILA, Philippines — SM Prime Holdings Inc., the listed property giant of the Sy family, has moved the opening of the Philippines’ first IKEA store to 2021 from the end of this year originally. 

In a presentation to investors, SM Prime said IKEA is set to open in 2021 in the Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City.

In an announcement in 2018, SM Prime said it was targeting to open IKEA at the end of this year.

The Swedish furniture and homewares chain cited “construction adjustments” as the reason for the delay.

SM Prime said the first IKEA in the country would be the world’s largest IKEA store and will occupy 157,000 square meters (sqm) of gross floor area  (GFA) in the Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City. 

IKEA will occupy 65,000 sqm of the GFA to house a two-level shop area, a large warehouse, an e-commerce facility and an integrated call center – making it the world’s largest IKEA store, SM Prime said in its presentation.

Founded in Sweden in 1943, IKEA is touted as the largest furniture store in the world. As of end June 2019, IKEA has 433 stores operating in 52 countries across the globe. 

The rise of IKEA in the MOA complex is part of the continuous development in the Bay Area, consistent with the vision the SM Group had more than 10 years ago when it launched SM Mall of Asia. 

This 2020, SM Prime’s mall launches and expansion projects will add around 333,000 sqm of GFA. Available landbank of almost 191 hectares is good for over the next five to seven years. 

SM Prime is set to operate in 2020 the first tower of the FourE-Com Center which has more than 110,000 sqm of GFA (First tower and podium only). 

SM Prime is also scheduled to open this year, the first building of North Towers in Quezon City with 24,000 sqm of GFA and the Megatower in Mandaluyong City with 125,000 sqm of GFA. 

SM Prime will spend an average of P80 billion for 2020 to support its provincial expansion and landbanking. 

The capex program will be funded by a combination of local borrowings and internal funds. 

SM Prime has 81 malls – 74 in the Philippines and seven in China.