[ bworldonline.com ]
MEGAWORLD Corp. is investing P1.2 billion to develop a three-storey mall inside its 34-hectare Upper East township in Bacolod City.
In a statement issued Friday, the listed property developer said the Upper East Mall will cover 24,200 square meters in gross floor area. It will have restaurants, four cinemas, an open-air food hall, and an indoor garden.
The Upper East Mall will also feature a 48-meter clock tower, seen to serve as a landmark for the township’s six-lane main avenue spanning from Lopez Jaena Street to Circumferential Road.
“We are curating an architectural masterpiece that depicts the cosmopolitan vibe of our Bacolod township. This is just the first mall that we are building in this township because there is still more room for future expansion,” Megaworld Chief Strategy Officer Kevin Andrew L. Tan said in a statement.
Megaworld will use a solar panel roofing for the mall, as well as other energy efficiency features including perceived airconditioning cooling design, escalators with crawling features, rainwater harvesting system that will use the collected water for plants, and gray water recycling system.
Megaworld expects to complete the mall by 2021. It will be then be directly connected to the transport hub that the company is building across the township’s central park, which in turn faces two residential towers called One Regis and Two Regis.
Upper East Mall forms part of the company’s P28-billion investment to develop the Upper East in a span of 10 years.
“In the next three to five years, we will see the residential towers, office towers, commercial buildings, hotel, church, parks, and this new lifestyle mall rising. We will also be opening the Upper East Avenue to the public in two years,” Mr. Tan said.
Aside from the Upper East, Megaworld is also developing a 54-hectare township called Northill Gateway along the Bacolod-Silay Airport Access Road. The estate will have its own lifestyle mall and residential villages — Forbes Hill and Fountain Grove.
Megaworld’s net income attributable to the parent grew by 16% to P3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2019, after consolidated revenues surged 15% to P14.9 billion.
Shares in Megaworld dropped 0.91% or five centavos to close at P5.44 each at the stock exchange on Friday.
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