SM Mall of Asia (also abbreviated as SM MoA, or simply Mall of Asia or MoA; ), is a large shopping mall in the Philippines, located at Bay City, Pasay, Philippines, within the SM Central Business Park, a reclaimed area within Manila Bay, and the southern end of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA).
Owned and developed by SM Prime Holdings, the largest mall chain owner and developer in the Philippines, it has a land area of , a gross floor area of approximately , and offers of floor area space for conventions and social functions. The area attracts a daily average foot traffic of about 200,000 people.
The mall is currently the largest shopping mall in the Philippines and the fifth in the world. When it opened in 2006, it was the largest shopping mall in the Philippines until SM North EDSA was redeveloped in 2008, and was relegated to third place by the expansion of SM Megamall from 2011 to 2015 when SM Seaside City opened to the public before returning to this spot in 2017. It later became the largest shopping mall in the Philippines starting 2021, following the opening of IKEA Pasay City, the first IKEA store in the country and the largest IKEA store in the world, at the mall's complex.
Following the mall's opening in 2006, it caused several smaller shopping malls nearby to close, such as the Pearl Plaza and the Uniwide Coastal Mall, both located in Barangay Tambo, Parañaque. However, this is changing with the rise of other malls and similar structures such as the Ayala Malls Manila Bay and W Mall.
Construction
Plans for SM Mall of Asia began in 1995, with construction originally slated to begin in January 1996; it was marketed to become the largest shopping mall in the world upon completion.
The mall is the centerpiece project of SM Prime Holdings at the SM Central Business Park, where five one-story buildings serve as the company's corporate offices, while the sixth building is being occupied by TeleTech Holdings, Inc. as their flagship site in the country.
The SM Mall of Asia's design team includes Arquitectonica as the projects design architect and Architect Robert Carag Ong, Architect of Record, and GHT Services as the complex's project managers. SM tapped two separate construction firms for the construction of the mall: Hilmarc's Construction Corp. for the South Parking Building, Main Mall, and Entertainment Mall; and Monolith Construction Development Corp. for the North Parking Building. The mall would have opened before Christmas Day of 2005 but had been delayed due to hitches in the delivery of construction materials. Frequent rains in the last quarter of 2005 also delayed the turnover of mall space to tenants. Due to these circumstances, SM Prime decided to move the opening date to March 3, 2006.
On February 27, 2006, the local newspaper Manila Standard Today reported that a team of Pasay City engineers found huge cracks underneath the structure, which was causing the structure to vibrate. When questioned about the inspection, the Pasay City Engineering Department denied making any statement regarding defects in the Mall of Asia. Engineer Edwin Javaluyas, Pasay City Engineering Officer, in his letter to SM Prime Holdings Inc., said he never stated that the city hall's engineering department inspected the Mall of Asia on February 23, 2006.
SM Prime, however, decided to move the opening to May 21 of that year. Jeffrey Lim, corporate information officer of SM Prime Holdings, emphasized that a rescheduling of the mall's opening was made to give the company an opportunity to allow more tenants to open shops and denied that the change was due to structural defects.
The mall was officially inaugurated by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with a special screening of Everest at the San Miguel Coca-Cola IMAX Theater. The movie was shown three days after Philippine triathlete Leo Oracion reached the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain.
Layout
The Mall of Asia consists of four buildings interconnected by walkways and elevated pathways: the Main Mall, the Entertainment Mall, and the North and South Wing Parking Buildings.
The Main Mall includes numerous shopping and dining establishments and the food court. The Entertainment Mall is a two-story complex, most of which is open-air, and also features some shopping and dining businesses. The Entertainment Mall also hosts the Music Hall, an events hall (formerly open-air, now airconditioned) facing Manila Bay. As of late 2021, majority of the area has been renovated with addition of air-conditioning. Due to the mall's size, all buildings have concierge desks, assisting local information within the area.