Vol. XXII, No. 90 [ BusinessWorld Onine ]
Friday, November 28, 2008 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
SY-LED SM Prime Holdings, Inc. will open its 32nd mall in the country in Rosales, Pangasinan tomorrow.
In a disclosure, the company said SM City Rosales would have a gross floor area of 60,989 square meters and a leasable area of 43,235 square meters.
SM Prime President Hans Sy said Rosales is an ideal location for their 32nd mall since it is near major cities.
"Rosales is a highly progressive municipality in Pangasinan with a large, productive agricultural base. It is also a takeoff point to the major cities of Dagupan, Nueva Ecija and Baguio, which make the area highly accessible," he said in a statement.
He said the opening of SM Rosales would provide employment to close to 1,500 people and will bring SM Prime’s total gross floor area to 4.1 million square meters.
SM Rosales will be the second mall the company has opened this year after SM Marikina in September. The group is expected to unveil SM Baliwag in Bulacan and expand SM Fairview in Quezon City before the year ends.
In a related development, the Gaisanos beat the Gokongweis in the race to open the first shopping mall in Leyte.
Gaisano Capital, headed by Henry Gaisano II, opens today the Gaisano Central Mall in the downtown area of Tacloban City. The mall sits on a four-hectare property that used to be occupied by the defunct Republic Theater along Justice Romualdez St.
Fastfood restaurant KFC will also open today its first outlet in Eastern Visayas. The KFC outlet is inside the Gaisano Central Mall.
Richard Villejo, Gaisano Capital operations manager, said Mr. Gaisano would lead the opening ceremonies, which will kick off with a store blessing and thanksgiving mass. Robinsons Land Corp., meanwhile, will open its mid-sized mall in the first quarter of 2009. Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez said construction work had been delayed due to heavy rains.
"It would not be farfetched for SM to follow the lead of Robinsons and Gaisano and put up its own mall here," the mayor said.
Tacloban is the provincial capital of Leyte and the commercial hub of Eastern Visayas, with more than 13,000 business establishments. The city was recently declared a highly urbanized city. A plebiscite ratifying the declaration will be held next month.
Before the Gaisanos opened their mall, only the Wilsam Uptown Mall in Borongan City was operating in Eastern Visayas. — Kristine Jane R. Liu and Sarwell Q. Meniano
