Property developer Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) is renovating four flagship shopping malls and doubling the number of its hotel room keys, as it remains bullish on the commercial leasing and hospitality sectors.
ALI senior vice president and head of leasing and hospitality Mariana Beatriz Zobel de Ayala said in an interview at the sidelines of Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) inaugural meeting Wednesday the group was now finalizing plans for the renovation of Glorietta and Greenbelt in Makati, Trinoma in Quezon City and Ayala Center Cebu.
Greenbelt 2 in Makati was closed for renovation on Jan. 1, while several shops at Greenbelt 1 ended their lease ahead of the March 2024 deadline, according to tenants.
Zobel de Ayala said the renovations would be conducted in phases over the next two years to avoid disruptions to tenants and mall-goers.
She said the renovation would not only add leasable space to these malls but would also improve customers’ mall experience.
“In most cases, the re-planning has resulted in additional leasable area. But more importantly, it resulted in more dynamic use of our open and common spaces,” she said.
She said ALI was working with global planners to help reintegrate the two parks within near Glorietta mall and reroute traffic to make it a walkable area.
“In all of those projects, we have taken a step back to really understand our target market. We are using those learnings to rethink the physical experience, things like the facade, navigation through the malls and also the stores, and how we engage with our customers,” she said.
ALI has 32 malls across the country with 2.1 million square meters (sq. m.) of gross leasable area (GLA) and another 234,000 sq. m. of GLA in the pipeline.
Zobel de Ayala said that for the hotel and resorts business, the group would put up additional hotels under the Seda brand in line with its target to double room keys to 8,000 from 4,000 over the next five years.
The upcoming hotels will be situated in top tourist destinations in the country, she said.
She said the malls and hotel businesses were two of the most severely-affected sectors during the pandemic because of the mobility and restrictions on non-essential travel at that time.
She said these sectors posted strong rebound in 2023, thanks to the so-called revenge spending.