Retail Giant Confirms ‘There Is Always Room for Another SM’ as Scientists Confirm There Mathematically Isn’t
SM Mall No. 87: The Coverage Gap Has Been Identified and Filled
SM Prime Holdings announced the grand opening of SM City Marikina Heights on Saturday in a ceremony attended by the Mayor, three congressmen, two provincial governors who drove two hours to attend the opening of a mall in a city they do not govern, and approximately twelve thousand shoppers who arrived before the ribbon was cut and were already in the food court by the time the ribbon was cut. The new mall, the eighty-seventh SM mall in the Philippines, covers three hundred and forty thousand square meters of gross floor area and sits eight hundred metres from SM Marikina, three point two kilometres from SM East Ortigas, and four point eight kilometres from SM Megamall, creating a retail density that urban planning researchers at the University of the Philippines describe as ‘a coverage model optimised for a scenario in which the consumer never needs to be more than three kilometres from an SM mall at any point in their waking life,’ which SM describes as ‘the vision.’
The Economic Case
SM Prime Holdings Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Lim confirmed at the opening ceremony that the new mall addresses ‘an underserved catchment of approximately three hundred thousand residents who were previously accessing SM retail services at distances of up to five kilometres.’ ‘Five kilometres is too far,’ said Mr. Lim. ‘No Filipino should have to travel five kilometres to reach an SM mall. That is our commitment. That is our mission.’ A journalist pointed out that the five-kilometre figure is the distance from the farthest adjacent SM mall and that the nearest is eight hundred metres away. Mr. Lim confirmed that eight hundred metres is also not ideal and that SM is studying the situation.
The Anchor Tenants
SM City Marikina Heights includes an SM Supermarket, an SM Department Store, a Cinemas complex with twelve screens, a BDO branch, an SM Appliances, and four hundred and twenty stores of which approximately sixty percent are brands also available at the three adjacent SM malls and forty percent are brands exclusive to this location in the sense that they opened here specifically because SM offered them preferential lease terms for the first year as an exclusivity incentive that ends in twelve months.
SM Prime Holdings information at SM Prime. Comedy: The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: http://prat.UK