SM Seaside City elevates retail standards in Cebu

SM SEASIDE City Cebu is SM’s biggest mall in Visayas and Mindanao.

CEBU CITY—Going to Talisay City, Cebu through the South Coastal Road used to be a breeze, especially on weekends.

Not anymore.

Traffic has been heavy at the SCR even on weekends following the opening of SM Seaside City Cebu at the South Road Properties on Nov. 27.

Although only 170 of the more than 440 tenants have started operations, Cebuanos flock to see SM’s biggest mall in the Visayas and Mindanao and 4th biggest nationwide next to SM Megamall, SM North Edsa and Mall of Asia.

And SM Seaside City doesn’t disappoint.

The mall building is an attraction in itself with its nautilus design done by Miami-based Arquitectonica and inspired by the spiral shell with a pale, pearly partition.

SM Seaside City has and will offer many firsts for Cebu that promise to change mall habits of the Cebuanos.

It has an Olympic-size ice skating rink, a 64-seat director’s club theater with La-Z-boy seats and a butler to boot.

SM Cinema launched the first laser projection system in Southeast Asia at the SM Seaside City.

The new system produces the brightest images with 80 percent illumination. It will be used in SM’s new large-format theater, the SM Large Screen Cinema, that will feature a screen almost 30 percent larger than the regular cinema screen.

SM Seaside City Cebu also has a 16-lane bowling center, which features popular bowling equipment brands and the latest technology.

Expected to open by mid-2016 is a viewing deck on a 150-meter high skyscraper called Seaside Tower that will provide a 360-degree view of Cebu.

“This viewing tower will be the first in the county,” said Hans Sy, SM Prime Holdings Inc. president.

Another feature is the Sky Park at the top of the mall, which will feature greenery and water components as well as a child-friendly playground designed by the world renown industrial designer Kenneth Cobonpue, Sy said.

Aside from the park being interactive, he added, the floors would be rubberized to make it safe for children.

Cebuanos are also excited about the opening of the Cebu Ocean Park inside the SM Seaside complex by 2017.

Manila Ocean Park, an integrated urban resort offering marine life attractions, has become a destination for both locals and tourists.

The Cebu Ocean Park will be developed on a one-hectare property beside the San Pedro Calungsod Chapel.

Economics professor Perry Fajardo said SM Seaside had set the bar in terms of size and variety of offerings.

“From hereon, other competing malls in Cebu and those still to come will use the SM Seaside Mall as their benchmark to equal or to surpass if possible. Otherwise, they will be destined to eat dust,” said Fajardo, executive director of the Cebu Business Park and former assistant director of the National Economic Development Authority (Neda) in Central Visayas.

SM Seaside has also helped ease the unemployment rate in Cebu and nearby provinces.

At present, the mall has between 8,000 and 10,000 workers, 4,000 of them employed at the department store alone, Sy said.

During the construction, SM hired at least 10,000 workers.

Sy said that among the challenges in the construction was the struggle getting more workers because of the construction boom in Cebu.

Asked about SM Seaside’s economic impact on Cebu, Fajardo said SM’s 56th mall may add something real to the local domestic product but not a lot because much of its gain will also be met by the decline in business in other malls.

He said he went to SM City at the North Reclamation Area in Cebu City last Nov. 28 and noticed a thinner crowd than usual, especially Fridays.

Tess Chan, president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, on the other hand, said that while SM Seaside had been reported to have been full in the past days since it opened, there were still a lot people in other malls.

Chan added that while the Cebu market was still good for existing malls, there was no immediate need to build another mall.

But Sy was confident that Cebu was more than ready for a mall as big as the SM Seaside City Cebu without having to poach the shoppers of other malls.

He was hoping to replicate the experience with Mall of Asia where 80 percent of tourists going to Manila would visit MOA.

“We are very confident to do the same [in SM Seaside] and get 80 percent of tourists who will come to Cebu,” he said.

Chan agreed that the presence of SM Seaside would help make Cebu even more attractive to tourists.

“It is another attraction and another landmark,” Chan said, adding that she expected more people from neighboring provinces to come to Cebu because of SM Seaside City.

The presence of international brand stores at the newly opened mall would also help keep the locals’ money here because they no longer have to go abroad to buy these products, she said.

Chan pointed out that balikbayans, for instance, would buy the imported products here for their loved ones instead of buying these abroad.

Sy also stressed that Filipinos were really avid shoppers and would even go abroad to shop.

“If we don’t give them a chance to shop over here, they just go abroad,”  he added.

Sy said the SM Group wanted to change the concept of malling from just shopping, especially with the growing popularity of

e-commerce where people shop through the Internet.

“It is a lifestyle now. We are getting people out of their house to enjoy life,” said Sy after integrating entertainment, culture and arts in SM malls.

Now, Cebuanos don’t go to the malls just to shop but also to unwind and bond with their loved ones by either watching a movie, playing in the park, skating in the ring or just embracing the view of the city.

Indeed, SM’s got it all.