To say the Metro Manila has a mall culture is a huge understatement. After all, if you have three of the biggest malls in the world within your borders it more than deserves that description. However, what will surprise you more is the fact that three of the top ten or four of the top fifteen largest malls in the world are owned by the same company. SM City North Edsa is the largest of those malls, incidentally it is their oldest shopping mall.
As the name implies, the mall is at the north end of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue or EDSA. At the crossroads of two major thoroughfares in Metro Manila, it is well positioned to catch pedestrian traffic coming from all directions of the city. It position at the end of the MRT III line also adds a little more convenience to visitors, not that their huge amount of parking space is not enough for them. Hold on, I take that back, the huge amount of parking space at SM City north Edsa is still not enough. At any time of the day, there is huge amount of people in the mall, it makes you wonder how to fit all those people inside.
The mall opened in the 1980s and is considered the prototype shopping mall in the country at that time. Since then, larger and fancier malls has sprung up. However, SM City, as it was known back then, is not to be denied. With new investment from SM, adjacent properties were acquired fueling their expansion. Finally, the design of the exterior of the mall has been updated to a more modern design as opposed to their traditional shoe box design present in many of their malls. Now a dome has also been built presumably to be able to host small performances in it. Admittedly, the design of the exterior of the mall is more pleasing to the eye now.
Inside the mall is another story. Although the mall was built in stages, it is possible to walk from one era to another seamlessly. I can be obvious from the interiors where the oldest part of the mall is and similarly, you can easily tell where the newest part of the mall is. The mall has so many annexes that I do not know which one they are referring to. Since I was only there for just a day, I didn’t have time to fully explore the mall. I would expect it to have more or less the standard set of shops that come with an SM mall.
After a few hours of going around, it really takes a toll on your feet and I still don’t know whether I have covered everything thing here. However, other than the basic shops, it has little to distinguish itself from the other malls or other SM Malls for that matter. It is a wonder to see a shopping mall grow over the years. It is now the second largest mall in the world in terms of retail space or third depending on who you ask. And yet, there is still room for expansion. The adjacent properties of SM can be easily purchased by the SM group and converted into yet another annex. It won’t be long before SM City North Edsa will be declared the undisputed largest shopping mall in the world.
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