Heavy traffic after SM Mall opens next month - Urdaneta Mayor

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

URDANETA CITY – Commuters here will be met by traffic snarl on May 4 after the new SM City Urdaneta Central opens, according to Mayor Amadeo Gregorio E. Perez IV

“Talagang ganoon. Traffic tayo diyan kahit saan naman may traffic,” he stressed.

MALL. SM City Urdaneta Central. 
Credit to BrokersNote.ph

The two-storey 32,882 square meter areas’ floor SM edifice sprawled at the five hectares of land near the MacArthur Highway in Barangay Nancayasan here is just a stone’s throw away at another giant retail store’s CB Mall and Chowking Restaurant.

“This is the one being built near the 7-11. The other one that people are talking is located at Barangay Anonas,” Mayor Perez cited.

The other SM Prime Holdings, Inc. (SMPH) building that hit a legal snag is the bigger SM City Urdaneta City.

 The three-storey SM City Urdaneta stands at a 98,646 sqm land in Barangay Anonas here if it finally constructed.

SMPH said it is equivalent to SM City Rosales.

The SM Mall in Barangay Nancaysan is part of the six malls of SMPH to be introduced this year in the Philippines. They have an aggregate gross floor area (GFA) of 430,669 sqm.

The one being built at Barangay Herrero in Dagupan City that will open middle of this year too was not included at the website of the SMPI on the six malls presented to the public.

 SM City in Barangay Tambac and SM Savemore Market in the Downtown area that will be constructed after the opening of SM Center in Herrero are not included too on its website. Probably they are yet to be constructed just like the one being built in Herrero.

Perez said the new Urdaneta Western Bypass Road that connects Barangays Anonas and Nancayasan would absorb the vehicles that traverse the cities of Dagupan and Baguio and vice versa.
He said it could mitigate the traffic congestion created by SM

Mall in Nancayasan. 
The 7.2 – kilometer route will open to motorists late this year

The alternative highway, according to Secretary Mark Villar of the Department of Public Works & Highway, cost the government P1.6 billion.

 It is another route to the existing Manila North Road, Urdaneta-Dagupan Road, Urdaneta-Manaoag Road, and the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La-Union Expressway (TPLEX), which will make travel more convenient for motorists going to and from Ilocos Region, Central Luzon, and Metro Manila.

There will be no charges in accessing this road, according to the DPWH.

The new highway, which will pass eight villages, will have three new bridges and additional four-kilometer of concrete road with drainage structures.

Meanwhile, Perez cited that from the 20 percent Development Fund taken from the almost P900 million annual appropriation budget for this year, the projects that he would be implementing are the day care centers, drainage canals, street lights, others.

He said his administration would construct and repair few roads this year.