DOUBLEDRAGON Corporation opened its 45th mall in the country – the CityMall-Surigao in Surigao City, Surigao del Norte – on July 28, officially making it the No. 4 largest mall developer and landlord in terms of number of operational malls and specifically in the community mall segment.
It is also currently the No. 1 largest community mall developer and landlord in terms of number of operating community malls in the Philippines.
The current CityMall’s gross floor area (GFA) forms part of the 1.29 million square meters of fully built and completed GFA in DoubleDragon’s diversified portfolio exceeding its one million square meters total GFA target by 2020 set and announced during its initial public offering (IPO) listing in the Philippine Stocks Exchange (PSE) in April 2014, at which point it had practically zero leasable space.
CityMall-Surigao has a total GFA of 8,608 square meters that sits in a 1.05-hectare of prime commercial land. The then-vacant land right beside the Surigao City Integrated Land Transport Terminal was purchased for land banking way back 2015 and forms part of the string of over 100 prime land spread out across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao that DoubleDragon acquired mostly from 2014 to 2016, when prime land prices was still mostly less than one-fourth of the land prices today.
CityMall-Surigao’s locator/tenant mix includes a full-size MerryMart Grocery, Jollibee, Chowking, Mang Inasal, Greenwich, Highlands Coffee, MerryMart Pharmacy powered by Carlos Superdrug, ALLWin Department Store, Fun Nation, PrimeHub, Vazcon Salon, Potato Corner, JM Shawarma, Party Toppers by Surigao Toopers, Keisha’s Jewelry, Master Siomai, Tori’s Buco, Redd’s Mango, RRJ, Petrol, Mr. Lee, Bobson, FreeLife, RELX and Elixir Store, Car-San Auto, Anchiko Cakes & Pastry Shop, DTI Go Negosyo, Chef Mike Japanese Cuisine booth, JYG Food Enterprises, Yesha’s Kwek Streetfood Cart, DO Marketing, Lemon District, Samantha’s Steamboat, and Mister Donut.
DoubleDragon further said that three more CityMalls are slated to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year: CityMall-Bay Laguna, CityMall-Palo Leyte and CityMall-Antique. For next year, four more CityMalls are set to open – CityMall-Gen Trias Cavite, CityMall-Guiwan Zamboanga, CityMall-Ormoc, and CityMall-Ozamiz – that would make DoubleDragon increase its operational mall portfolio to 52 by the end of 2024.
DoubleDragon opened its first CityMall in 2015 and it reached 45 malls in a span of only eight years as of July 28, including the over two years of COVID-19 pandemic.
The CityMalls that were opened before the pandemic are now in batches, undergoing refresh makeover since early this year and to be completed by the end of this year in line with the goal of making the CityMalls in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao reach maturity level and attain the optimal above-industry rental yields by 2025.
CityMall’s occupancy level post-COVID-19 pandemic has steadily increased and is expected to reach 100% by end of 2024, driven by the continued transition from traditional retail to modern retail in the countryside.
“Within the first three years of DoubleDragon’s IPO in the Philippine Stock Exchange last April 2014, we purposely and rapidly acquired majority of the company’s landbank for CityMall when land prices in city centers of prime provincial cities were still low. Today, we have seen exponential value appreciation across the string of prime commercial properties which our DD team are thankful to have acquired a string of hundreds of prime assets across the country early on,” said DoubleDragon chairman Edgar “Injap” Sia II.
He added: “We see building structures for the recurring revenue business like fruit-bearing trees, where the buildings are like the tree, and the recurring income that eventually follows are like the fruits that keep coming for many decades. And while they produce the fruits year on year, the property like the bark of the tree also becomes more and more valuable.”/PN
