Davao City—The SM chain of stores opened on Friday its 75th supermall in Mindanao’s fifth-richest city, offering “great shopping, leisure, and entertainment” in the northeastern Mindanao region.
The retail chain said SM City Butuan is “SM Prime Holdings’ 75th supermall, the sixth in Mindanao, and the first in the Caraga Region.”
It is located in a 37,233-square-meter property along JC Aquino Avenue, some 6 kilometers west of downtown, to serve shoppers in Agusan del Norte, as well as those in the nearby provinces of Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, and Dinagat Islands. These are the areas that composed the Caraga Region.
The multilevel mall area totals 48,278 square meters and has an origami-inspired facade. Its architects said the mall’s “innovative design concepts highlight the interiors, the Cyberzone’s biophilic theme is inspired by nature’s tangible features that mimic plant vegetation’s orientation, the natural pattern of days and seasons and the earth stones of the environment”.
SM City Butuan would also have 4 state-of-the-art cinemas and the largest mall-based event center in the Caraga region, it said in a statement.
It also has a total of 734 parking slots including 543 for regular cars, 175 for motorcycles, 8 for PWD vehicles and 8 for senior citizens. It also has a helipad and a transport bay.
The SM Store and SM Supermarket are SM City Butuan’s major anchors, along with SM mainstays like SM Appliance Center, ACE Hardware, Watsons, Surplus, Our Home, and Sports Central, Uniqlo, The Body Shop, Crocs and Miniso. It will also have fashion boutiques, jewelry stores, bookstores; as well as a Cyberzone and service and wellness outlets.
Eating out options include local and international food chains, as well as specialty restaurants like Shakey’s, Sunnies Café, Hukad, Bigby’s, Samgyeopsal House, Wildwings, Ribshack, Choobi Choobi, and coffee and milk tea outlets like Bo’s Coffee, Chatime, Macao Imperial Tea, and Gongcha, SM said.
“More than that, it [the supermall] will be a catalyst for employment and business opportunities in the area,” it added.
SM described its newest host city as the commercial, industrial, and administrative center of the CARAGA region, and a strategic trading hub in Northern Mindanao, with major roads connecting it other key cities in the island including Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Malaybalay, and Surigao.
While Butuan today is highly urbanized, and is ranked as the fourth most competitive city and the fifth richest in Mindanao, it also has a fascinating past captured in the famous local expression “before the Philippines, there was Butuan.”
“That is because Butuan was already a progressive city centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards. Historical records show that as early as the 10th century, local people were already engaged in trade and commerce with other nations and cultures like the Vietnamese and the Srivajaya people of Java, Indonesia. And today, Butuan makes history again as SM opens a new mall in the city during these challenging times.”
Butuan-based tenants like Verity, Fulcrum Café, Custodio Medical Clinic, Bella Mecanica Nail and Waxing Salon, and Alot Barbero Lokal are also found in the mall.
SM said it would also enforce “high-standard hygiene checks and health protocols in the city, such as mandatory face masks and shields and temperature checks and sanitation upon entry, as well as Trace Together a smart approach for contact tracing with a QR code”.
1 comment
Where’s the food court??? Every mall has one but the new SM Butuan has no food court. 🙁