Robinsons to open 5 new malls next year

PROPERTY developer Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC) plans to open - side of the National Capital Region (NCR) in line with its plan to expand its gross leasable area (GLA) by 11 percent, a company

Lourdes Alano, RLC vice president for lease, told reporters on the sidelines of the 4th Asia Summit in Parañaque City that as well as three existing ones that are undergoing expansion.

Alano said the three existing malls that are being expanded are in Tagum in Davao City, Jaro in Iloilo, and Iligan City in Mindanao.

As for the new malls, Alano going to be the flagship mall - panding our llocos Norte mall. our expansion in Novaliches, so basically those are the developments all lined up for next year.”

Alano said that RLC currently owns about a million square meters of GLA, and they hope to increase it by 11 percent next year.

“We hope to increase our GLA about a million in gross leas an increase of around 10 or 11 percent,” said Alano.

strategy to reach that goal is to open three to five malls yearly as long as there is still developable land and markets to cater to.

are [going to expand], because right now we are doing land - erties not only in Metro Manila but [ also] in the Visayas and Mindanao area. As long as there is property we are acquiring, I believe we will be growing,” said Alano.

keen on building malls outside of the capital, Alano said that there is already a challenge in acquiring big parcels of land in Metro Manila.

But she noted that they will not be following the community mall trend, which is popular in the provincial areas.

doing. The community malls is being taken care of by our affiliate, our sister company - created to enter that particular format,” said Alano.

She added: “Community mall formats are much smaller, supermarket, by a few retailers. I guess most of the community malls, one community mall will be housing probably 25 to 30 tenants, whereas for Rob malls, we have around 150 to 200 tenants in one full- service mall.”

Alano said that RLC plans to build malls in Ormoc, Tuguegarao, Naga, Valencia in Bukidnon, Cabangcalan in Negros Occidental, Cabanatuan, Calbayog, Abucay in Tacloban and Pavia in Iloilo in 2017, but all are still in the planning stage.

When asked why they chose those areas, Alano said, “First, these are greenfield areas. Like in Tacloban, the only mall in town before was Gaisano. We were the second big player market. It has proven to be successful. All the demographics have shown positive signs. Right now, the performance of our Tacloban mall has outperformed pre- Haiyan days.”

really the market that those particular cities have. When we acquire properties, we take a look at demographics, bank deposits, competitor, population of the market, accessibility of the location, so the interplay of those factors makes us decide to grow in these markets.”

She said the cost for building each mall depends on the size of the mall.