Property giant open to partnerships for smart city

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SM Prime Holdings Inc. is keen on partnering with interested parties to develop the properties within the 360-hectare SM Smart City in Pasay City, according to its executive committee chairman Hans Sy Sr.

“It’s a five-year project. It started two years ago, so we still have three more years to go. When we say five years by that time, you’ll see some other structures going up,” Sy told reporters on the sidelines of the National Retail Association’s National Retail Conference and Expo 2024 at the SMX Convention Center on Friday.

“What we’re doing right now is the basic reclamation. But we’ve started some negotiation. It’s not something that we will just do it by ourselves,” he added.

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SM Prime is spending close to P150 billion for the reclamation project, which aims to capitalize on the growth development of the SM Group’s Mall of Asia complex.

“It will be developed as a modern city, taking advantage of Mall of Asia but with lots of interesting shopping ideas,” said Sy, adding that it will be a mixed-use development sans a big shopping center.

Hans Sy Jr., SM Engineering Design and Development Corp. president, said the land development is poised to be completed by the end of next year, at the latest.

“Our timetable right now is that we should finish…that we should see the completion of the land (development) by end of next year, hopefully. And then we still have some infrastructure work, the roads, the utilities, the piping,” he said.

“The real hardship will come from all the planning that comes afterwards, the electrical planning, the water utilities, the waste. How do you handle transport? How do you know the traffic? All these things have to be really considered,” the younger Sy added.

He said the SM Group intends to leverage on its experience in developing the Mall of Asia complex.

“We are witness to the things that we’ve done over the 60 hectares here about how we’re able to provide the right kind of sustainable design, development, customer experience, as my father said, and we hope to be able to leverage all the things that we learned in the last 20 years really into a bigger and better project, just literally across the river,” Sy Jr. said.

Sy Jr. said Manila needs good urban planning.

“I think that we’re all residents of a city that truly begs for some real long-term thought process to how cities are being and so our offer to the public is that with what we conceived, what we’ve done with 60 hectares here, we’d love to see what we can try to deliver for something that’s twice the size of BGC (Bonifacio Global City),” Sy Jr. added.

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