By Richmond S. Mercurio (The
Philippine Star) | Updated November 12, 2014 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - SM Prime
Holdings Inc. the integrated property firm of tycoon Henry Sy, is set to unveil
early next year the masterplan for a P100-billion “future city” in the
company’s Pasay and Parañaque reclamation projects.
SM Prime president Hans Sy, in an
interview late Monday on the sidelines of the PSE Bell Awards, said the
masterplan being prepared by a foreign group is expected to be completed by the
first quarter of next year.
“We already got the rights. Of course
there are still a lot of process approvals needed but at the same time we are
already doing the master planning because I want to be able to show everyone
that reclamation indeed is the way to go,” Sy said.
“We expect by first quarter of next
year, it should be substantially complete,” he added.
SM Prime has tapped New-York listed
firm Aecom Technology Corp., one of the world’s largest engineering companies,
to conduct the project’s master planning.
The plan would show what can be done
in the reclaimed areas and at the same time clear out environmental issues the
project may raise.
Reclamation projects have caught the
interest of SM Prime due to the increasing population of Metro Manila.
SM Prime said the integrated project
is seen as a long-term development given its scale.
Last September, SM Prime announced it
plans to integrate the development of two reclamation projects in Pasay and
Parañaque with a combined area of 600 hectares.
SM Prime, one of the leading
integrated property development companies in Southeast Asia, is behind the
100-hectare Mall of Asia complex in Pasay.
The Sy family’s integrated property
firm improved its net income in first three quarters of the year by 12 percent
to P13.5 billion while increasing its revenues by nine percent to P47.8
billion.
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