SM Holdings breaks ground to build SM City Sorsogon

_{When completed in 2020, SM City Sorsogon will be the biggest mall in terms of land area in the Bicol region}

SORSOGON CITY, Philippines – A P4 billion SM Supermall will be built on a sprawling 13-hectare property in this city, which, when completed, will be the biggest of its kind in the Bicol region in terms of land area.

SM City Sorsogon will also be the third largest expansion project of SM Prime Holdings Incorporated in the Bicol peninsula after the ones in Legazpi and Naga.

Sorsogon plays a strategic role for SM Holdings as the province is the southernmost in Luzon and serves as a gateway to the Visayas and Mindanao.

Bien C. Mateo, SM senior vice president-mall operations said during the groundbreaking ceremony Monday, March 25, that the SM City Sorsogon will be a climate-resilient and earthquake-proof structure.

“The structure is typhoon and earthquake resilient that could withstand intensity 8 earthquake as prescribed by Mr. Hans Sy as member of United Nations disaster resilient (committee). We put up earthquake monitoring devices to monitor the intensity and capability of the building,” Mateo said.

The mall’s construction will take 14 months. It will open in the third quarter of 2020, according to Mateo. It will be a two-storey structure and will be expanded to 3 storeys, including a convention center.

As expected, the SM department store and supermarket will be the mall’s anchors, but SM City Sorsogon will also include 4 state-of-the-art cinemas.

Similar to SM City Lepazpi, the forthcoming SM City Sorsogon will be situated beside the LKY Grand Terminal.

SM City Legazpi remains the premier and biggest mall in Bicol region in terms of floor area.

Mateo said their new investment in Sorsogon will provide from 8,000 to 10,000 new jobs, with the department store alone needing 2,000 local residents.

“As the SM brand expands in Sorsogon, so is the SM Cares program which is the corporate social responsibility arm of SM supermalls. We always strive to be the top taxpayer and employer of choice of every city (we expand),” he said. – Rappler.com

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Article and Photo originally posted by Rappler last March 27, 2019.