THE business boom in Davao City is picking up. Two more malls are rising and are scheduled to open their doors to the public in a year or two.
Under construction in Lanang, some seven kilometers from the city hall, is the second SM mall in Davao owned by retail mogul Henry Sy. SM-Lanang is rising at the 10-hectare former Lanang Golf and Country Club owned by the Dacudao family. It is rising in tandem with two modern edifices – Park Inn Hotel of Radisson and the much-awaited SMX Davao Convention Center.
Senator Manny Villar’s housing firm is building a mall in barangay Mintal, 14 kilometers from downtown, in a place where Villar has out up another of one of his subdivisions. The Starmall, named after Villar’s mall in Manila, is located along the Davao City-Bukidnon Highway and the first of its kind in that part of the city dubbed by development planners as the “institutional area” because that is where many government institutions are located.
The University of the Philippines-Mindanao, the Philippine Science High School-Mindanao campus, the Regional Police Academy, the Bureau of Plant Industry experiment station, the Philippine Coconut Authority, the science centrum, the Philippine Army training center, the Southern Philippines Development Administration and the Department of Agrarian Reforms regional and national offices are located in that area.
There are close to 20 middle class and high-end housing projects in Mintal, which was once the center of commerce and headquarters of many Japanese-owned abaca plantations shortly before the World War II.
SM Lanang will be the fifth shopping center along J.P. Laurel Avenue sharing the dense traffic thoroughfare with Gaisano Mall of Davao, Victoria Plaza Mall, the Ayala-Floirendo owned Abreeza, and Robinsons Cybergate.
The SMX Davao Convention Center is expected to accommodate 5,000 plus people and can be divided into three halls that can accommodate 700 to 1,800 people each. It has a leasable area of about 5,400 square meters.
The convention center located inside SM Lanang will feature three halls, two function rooms and three meeting rooms.
According to SM Hotels and Conventions Corporation vice president for sales and marketing Lourdes Macalindong, the facility will help boost local tourism as it can attract large conventions and exhibitions.
The City has been unable to snatch the hosting of premiere conventions and other large events like the much-coveted Ad Congress because of the lack of a sufficient convention facility in the City.
The SMX is touted to become a one-stop convention complex with a nearby hotel to be put up in the area. The 204-room Park Inn Hotel under the Raddisson brand aims to complement the SMX and will be connected by a series of foot bridges. The P800-million hotel, the first of its brand in Southeast Asia, is expected to open by 2013.
The Park Inn Hotel targets business and leisure travelers as its main market.
According to its website, the hotel will become one of more than 100 hotels being operated by Radisson across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and North America which “boast of key amenities, colorful and contemporary interiors and innovative restaurants.”
Based on the plan, a bridge will connect the convention center to the P800-million Radisson Park Inn within the complex.
Aside from the malls, condominiums and hotels are also being built. Executives of SM companies and Ayala were in Davao City recently to give separate press conferences during the past two weeks to announce the start of construction of their condominium and hotel projects.
