By Mortz C. Ortigoza
URDANETA, Pangasinan – Among the three SM shopping malls in
the gargantuan province’s Pangasinan, the SM Prime owned giant retail store
here is more profitable than those in Rosales town and Dagupan City thus its
expansion to third floor.
“It’s because of the location,” SM regional public relations manager Kristine Joy Santiago told this newspaper about the giant retail store being ensconced in the densely populated Urdaneta City and the burgeoning demography of the 5th Congressional District that composed of eight towns and one city.
The new floor that opened to the public last Friday hosts
the food court, wellness center, Our Home, Manila Bank, Philippine Statistics
Authority, The Event Center, Blade, Paw Park, All About Baking, LBC, Photo
Line, Xo, Huawei, Acer, Everything but Cheese, SM Snack Time, Serom Hair, and
other commercial stalls.
Because of these new stores hosted by SM-Urdaneta Central
more that 800 residents of the province have been employed.
SM Urdaneta Central Manager Abraham Malicdem told media men
the construction of the third level was planned as early as 2018 but it was
disrupted by the lethal pandemic’s Corona Virus Disease- 2019 (Covid-19).
Santiago cited this writer that the construction of the
bigger SM in the province located at Barangay Tambac in Dagupan City will push
through.
The proposed mall can be at par with SM City in Baguio City.
The latter is the 23rd largest shopping mall in the Philippines. At a floor
area of 176,073 m², it is the largest shopping mall in the North Luzon Region.
As of April 2022, SM Prime has 79 malls located across the
country and 24 more scheduled to be opened for an eventual total of 106 malls.
It also has seven malls in China, including SM Tianjin which is the second
largest in the world in terms of gross leasable area. SM Supermalls has become
one of the biggest mall operators in Southeast Asia. Combined, the company has
about 9.24 million square meters of gross floor area (GFA). It has 17,230
tenants in the Philippines and 1,867 tenants in China.
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