MANILA, Philippines – First, the bad news. There will be no Christmas celebration in the upcoming SM City La Union this year.
That’s because the Sy family’s first SM mall in the province of La Union will not be finished by the last quarter of 2024 as SM Prime Holdings Corporation (SM Prime) had hoped.
In the property developer’s latest investor kit released this week, SM City La Union was no longer mentioned as among the new malls targeted to be opened in the rest of 2024.
After opening SM City Caloocan last May, SM Prime said it “plans to open two more malls this 2024,” namely SM City J Mall in Mandaue City, Cebu, and SM City Laoag in Ilocos Norte, the home province of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
These two new malls are set to be opened in the fourth quarter of 2024 or anytime from October to December.
In its previous investor presentation for the first quarter of 2024, SM Prime had said that SM City La Union would also open in the fourth quarter.
Rappler reached out to the SM group to check if this was just an oversight, but we were told that the opening of SM City La Union would be delayed to the first quarter of 2025.
SM’s mall project in La Union is being built on sandy soil (not a beach), a material that easily erodes with rainwater. This means the foundation on the new mall will have to be built deeper and with stronger materials. If SM City Marikina — which survived Tropical Storm Ondoy — is any indication, this mall is being built to withstand extreme weather conditions.
In front of the mall’s west side is a creek (color blue in this photo below), not a beach.
Leeroy who?
What’s the good news?
Well, the slight delay may be worth the wait because we were told that Filipino contemporary visual artist Leeroy New will have an art project in the new mall.
If you’ve never heard of Leeroy New nor seen his creative pieces of art, visit the Conrad Hotel in the Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City.
In the hotel lobby, you’ll see his sculpture Oroborus, described as a “clustering of iridescent shells or marine plant life in suspended animation as it bends and flows with the motions of the sea.”
Walk a few meters to Lanson Place Mall of Asia, which opened last April, and you’ll see Leeroy New’s hanging “floating sculptural piece” inspired by the sea. “Six large pieces representing waves with bioluminescence or microscopic sea creatures that emit light at night,” said Lanson Place in its post about the artwork. Lanson Place has 247 hotel rooms and 142 serviced residences.
SM couldn’t have picked a better Filipino artist to make something grand in what will be its 89th mall in the Philippines. His art would really suit the Philippine’s surfing capital in the north.
And Leeroy New isn’t new to La Union. If you go to the Waves Beach Club and Residences in the surfing town of San Juan, La Union, you’ll experience his art installation, Mebuyan’s Vessel, “made up of 21 interconnected and inhabitable pods that features arts and crafts.” It’s a project with coastal-based organization Emerging Islands.
In next-door Ilocos Norte, Leeroy New also built in 2015 the Chrysalis vessel, a cocoon-like spaceship made of bamboo, in the Paoay sand dunes, a project with locals of Paoay and the provincial government.
Rappler was told Leeroy New is building a “play area” in SM City La Union together with the La Union community.
Here are other perspectives of SM City La Union from the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) submitted by the project’s consultant Prism Express Consulting Incorporated to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Last week, SM Megamalls teased the interior of SM City La Union by posting what appears to be a blue-waves-themed entrance.
SM City La Union is located in Barangay Biday in the capital city of San Fernando.
It will be two-story commercial building with a roof deck. It will also have a River Walk View area that will overlook the West Philippine Sea since the west side of the mall is just around 550 meters away from the coast.
As with most SM malls, it will have a food court, a hypermarket, an SM Store, cinemas, department store, a Cyberzone, ATM Center, restaurants, and other shops.
Each floor will have a gross floor area of 29,432 square meters.
Aside from providing jobs and generating economic activity, SM said SM City La Union is seen to enrich the local community’s social interactions, as well as boost the city’s commerce. – Rappler.com