October 3, 2012, 3:23pm
MANILA, Philippines — Even though SM Lanang Premier – SM Prime’s 46th shopping center – is SM’s fourth in Mindanao and the second in Davao, it is a mall of firsts. It brings the definitive shopping experience of a premier SM mall to Davao City with its modern structure and cutting-edge design, upscale retail mix, dining concepts, and world-class entertainment and convention facilities never seen before in Mindanao.
There is The Park, an outdoor events venue with a breathtaking 122-meter musical fountain. There’s also the Skygarden, which features greens, water features, and restaurants. The mall also hosts the first IMAX theater in Mindanao and the first Forever 21 store in the region. Add to that, there’s an SMX Convention Center. With these attractions, it is not surprising that SM Lanang Premier attracted record crowds on opening day.
Located on a 100,000 sqm site along JP Laurel Avenue in Barangay Lanang, the 145,000 sqm mall will serve customers in the northern part of Metro Davao, an area that has long been known as an affluent residential, commercial, and leisure address in the city.
It will also bring the premiere shopping, leisure, and entertainment experience to residents in neighboring cities and provinces like Panabo, Tagum, Davao del Norte, Compostella Valley, Mati, and Davao Oriental.
SM Lanang Premier’s design will make it a landmark in highly urbanized Davao, which is considered the biggest city in the world in terms of land coverage.
Inspired by the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, the origami, SM Lanang Premier has a folded building design concept. Like the origami, it is made up of intricate folds in a complex system that form a simple yet elegant tectonic box when put together.
The signature and efficient shoebox building topology is retained, while the abstract and asymmetric lines of the origami are introduced with the north, south, and west facades, as well as in the interiors with its monumental atrium skylight.
Lighting is key whether in one of its aluminum cladding facades or the signature atrium skylight. In the evening, the building gets highlighted, glows, and mutates with an endless color spectrum of embedded LED lighting.
The four-story mall offers a world of shopping convenience with its main anchors, the SM Store and SM Supermarket, as well as SM mainstays including SM Appliance Center, Watsons, ACE Hardware, Our Home, and Kultura.
Global brands like Forever 21, as well as flagship stores of major national brands like Penshoppe and Bench add to the shopping excitement. The Cyberzone, the ultimate tech and IT lifestyle center of the SM malls completes the shopping picture.
Eating out at SM Lanang Premier brings the dining experience to a higher level. The Flat Café designed on top of a free-standing slab offers a 360-degree view of the monumental atrium. There is, of course, the Skygarden, and the Fountain Court, a two-level strip of casual and fine dining restaurants with a view of the 122 meter musical fountain, the first of its kind in Mindanao and the longest in the country.
Many of the restaurants in the Fountain Court are new to Davao – Claw Daddy’s, Vikings, Morisco by Don Beppe, Hog’s Breath Café, Mr. Kurusawa, Sumo San Legacy, and New Orleans Café.
SM Lanang Premier also redefines leisure and entertainment with the first IMAX cinema in Mindanao, aside from five state-of-the-art digital cinemas and a live theater cinema. It also has an SMX Convention Center, a Bowling Center, and a hotel, the Park Inn Radisson.
For customer convenience, it has 1,535 parking slots with park finders in the indoor parking slots.
The design team includes Point Design, Inc., Design Architect; G&W Architects, Architect of Record; NGCB, General Contractor; and D.A. Abcede and Associates, Project Manager.
It also has Edge as its Cinema Designer, Abesamis-Guerrero as its Trade Hall Designer, and HBO+EMTB as its Cyberzone designer.