SM Prime Holdings Inc., the Philippines’s biggest mall developer and operator, is opening SM Olongapo today, Friday, Feb. 10, to bring the company’s nationwide mall count to 42 shopping centers.

In a statement, SM Prime said that 81 percent of the mall’s 22,462 square meters of gross leasable area have been awarded to tenants.

“The opening of SM City Olongapo is doubly significant for SM Prime as it is the company’s first shopping mall to be opened this year and it is also the very first SM mall in Zambales province,” SM Prime President Hans Sy said.

Olongapo City is a highly urbanized area in Zambales, with the first-class city located next to the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, a former US naval base that is now a major industrial, tourism and logistics hub.

Major tenants are SM Department Store and SM Supermarket, which will occupy 11,364 sq m and 3,929 sq m of floor space, respectively.

Other mall tenants include BDO, Watsons, Ace Hardware, National Book store, Jollibee and KFC, among others. 

SM City Olongapo’s major amenities consist of an al fresco dining area, which offers a view of Olongapo’s mountain landscape; three cinemas with a combined seating capacity of 758; and parking slots for over 300 vehicles.

The opening further brings SM Prime’s total gross floor area to 5 million sq m.

For the rest of 2012, SM Prime is scheduled to open SM City Lanang in Davao City, SM City General Santos in Southern Mindanao, SM City Consolacion in Cebu, SM City San Fernando in Pampanga, and SM Chongqing in China.

By the end of this year, SM Prime will have 46 malls in the Philippines and five in China with an estimated combined gross floor area of 6.3 million sq m.

SM Prime shares added 0.64 percent to P15.7 each on Thursday, giving it a market value of P218.21 billion.