CEBU CITY—The municipality of Cordova and the Philippine Reclamation Authority are set to sign an agreement on the country’s biggest reclamation project proposed by SM Prime Holdings Inc.
“On April 24, we will sign memorandum of understanding between the municipality of Cordova and Philippine Reclamation Authority for SM project,” Cordova Mayor Adelino Sitoy told reporters.
The municipality of Cordova last year awarded the P138-billion reclamation project to SM Prime, the original proponent of the project.
The project involves reclamation of 1,500 hectares of land in the province. SM Prime will own 49 percent of the total reclaimed area or 735 hectares, while the rest will be shared by the provincial government of Cebu, PRA and Cordova.
“I require them to prepare the masterplan. They will put up land area first. Among the plans of SM is putting up a landing point, a wharf for cruise ship and maybe another shopping mall. Maybe an aquarium like one, like in Singapore,” Sitoy added.
He also said the PRA would hold a Swiss Challenge to match the offer of SM Prime.
SM Prime in November opened SM Seaside Cebu City, a 470,486.31-square-meter waterfront mall at the South Road Properties complex.
It will soon have residential towers, hotels, convention centers, a school, hospital, and a one-hectare Cebu Ocean Park slated for 2017.
Earlier, Parañaque City accepted the proposal of the SM Group to develop and reclaim 300 hectares of land in Manila Bay within the city’s jurisdiction.
The Parañaque reclamation is the second of such project awarded by a local government unit to the SM Group.
The Pasay City government in December last year agreed to team up with the SM group over a proposed P54.5-billion reclamation project in Manila Bay covering 300 hectares.
SM Prime had programmed P65 billion in capital expenditures this year, higher than P64 billion last year.
The company will earmark about 52 percent of the 2016 capital spending for shoppings malls, 38 percent for residential, 7 percent for commercial and 3 percent for hotels and convention centers.
SM Prime is the largest integrated real estate developer in Southeast Asia by market capitalization and the biggest shopping mall developer in the Philippines in terms of gross leasable space.