by Jenniffer B. Austria
[ manilastandardtoday.com ] May 2, 2011
SM Prime Holdings Inc., the largest property operator and developer, is spending P1.5 billion to expand its third-largest shopping mall in the country.
SM Prime chief finance officer Jeffrey Lim said in an interview the company had started the expansion of the SM Megamall in Ortigas Central Business District, which involves the construction of an additional 100,000 square meter of gross leasable area.
SM Prime plans to convert the existing open parking along Edsa into a multi-level commercial, parking and office space for business process outsourcing companies.
Lim said the whole redevelopment, which covers about two hectares of land, would be completed by 2013.
SM Megamall has two buildings interconnected with a bridge. The mall occupies a land area of approximately 18 hectares and has a total floor area of an estimated 348,000 square meters, making it the third largest shopping mall in the country and seventh largest in the world by area.
The mall attracts a daily foot traffic of 800,000 people, adding up to 292,000,000 people a year. It has a maximum capacity of four million people.
SM Prime reported a 12- percent increase in consolidated net income in the first three months of the year to P2.12 billion from P1.89 billion year-on-year.
Revenues grew by 13 percent on year to P6.07 billion.
Rental fees in the first quarter still accounted for the largest share of SM Prime’s consolidated revenues, reaching P5.26 billion, for a robust growth of 14 percent. Increased revenues from the four new malls in 2010 contributed to the total.
The new malls that opened last year were SM City Tarlac, SM City San Pablo, SM City Calamba and SM City Novaliches. The four new malls combined added 289,200 square meters to the company’s total gross floor area and register an average occupancy rate of 94 percent.
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