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Huge Mall of Asia fills to the brim

By Steve McLinden

Henry Sy, known as the Philippines’ King of Malls, may have created his own crown jewel in metro Manila’s sprawling and spectacular SM Mall of Asia, the world’s third-largest mall. And though it has been open for less than a year, it is already 97 percent leased, with an estimated 1,000 or so prospective tenants angling for the space that remains, say officials of SM Prime Holdings, its developer and the Philippines’ top mall operator.

The 83-year-old Sy is a professed admirer of Sam Walton. This, Sy’s 23rd mall, is certainly his most prominent.

The mall’s slogan, “No other mall comes close,” may be an apt description of this four-building complex that was built in a wetlands reclamation area of Pasay City and was inaugurated by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on May 20, 2006.

The mall contains 600 shops, 150 eateries and nine anchors, including the Sy family’s own SM Appliance Center, SM Department Store and SM Hypermarket. With the exception of the Dell Call Center, the remaining anchors — Ace Hardware, Imax, home goods supplier Our Home, fashion discounter Surplus Shop and Toy Kingdom — are joint ventures or partnerships with SM. The likes of The Body Shop, Caliope, Mango, Marrionaud and Zara, plus an assortment of play places such as Power Station, cater to a diverse set of family tastes.

But the mall’s bountiful amenities, including several Philippines firsts, truly set it apart. Mall of Asia is the first major shopping venture on picturesque Manila Bay, and it boasts the country’s first Imax cinema and Olympic-size skating rink. A planetarium and science museum featuring a robotics exhibit is to come in October, says Hans T. Sy, son of the founder, and the president of SM Prime.

Several little touches provide added luster. Concierges guide visitors, trams ferry foot-sore shoppers, and a pair of open-air shopping areas provide additional adventures. A giant bronze globe, centerpiece of a traffic roundabout, emphasizes the mall’s international flair. Giant windows provide abundant natural light. Besides the mall’s vast food court and other interior culinary haunts, a menagerie of restaurants overlooking the shoreline offer outdoor diners relief from the searing tropical heat with cool bay breezes.

Mall of Asia is built on 48 acres and contains 4.2 million square feet of gross leasable area, third only to South China Mall, in Dongguan (7.1 million square feet), and Golden Resources Mall, in Beijing (6 million square feet). The mall was originally planned as a seven-story high-rise costing 7.5 billion pesos ($139 million), but this was revised to a two-story structure costing $51.4 million, with ample space for future additions.

The mall is the core of the 60-hectare (150-acre) SM BayCity, owned by SM Prime parent firm SM Investments Corp. This master-planned district will feature hotels, offices, a convention center, a sports arena and a ferry terminal. One visitor to a travel blog dubbed Mall of Asia an “unfolding success story. If we can improve the security in our country, this will just be the beginning of our independence.”

Mall traffic has exceeded even the Sy family’s high expectations, with 200,000 to 400,000 visitors during the week and 750,000 to 1.2 million on weekends. “Most of our shops are pleased with their sales, and many are exceeding their sales targets,” said Hans Sy.

The mall’s four connected buildings are the main mall, the north and south car-park buildings and the entertainment mall (used for concerts, TV tapings, product launches, and corporate and school events). All of this adds up to an enormous traffic driver. The World Pyro Olympics, featuring elaborate fireworks exhibits by pyrotechnic artists from around the globe, lit up the sky over the mall’s boardwalk in January and drew hundreds of thousands.

Designed for an upper-middle-income demographic, Mall of Asia has entertained a surprisingly broad spectrum of shoppers, including families in town for a day at the bay, busloads of tourists, students on field trips and international visitors. “Every day now tourist buses are lined up in our open parking area,” said Hans Sy. “We didn’t really plan to see them this early.”