Building BGC clones: Big Boy Sy taps long-time executive Glenn Ang to lead SM’s smart city projects

SM Prime Holdings (SMPH) chaired by ultra bilyonaryo Henry “Big Boy” Sy Jr. has formed its management team to lead its smart cty development projects.

In a November 7 meeting, SMPH board appointed Glenn D. Ang as president of its 100 percent-owned subsidiary SM Smart City Infrastructure and Development Corp.

Ang, who has been with SMPH since 1992, used to senior vice president for operations of SM Supermalls.

SMPH launched in December last year its partnership with Carmona municipality in Cavite to build a 200-hectare world-class township project.

Dubbed Carmona Smart City, the project will have a new municipal hall, a farmer’s market, and a sizeable SM Mall to serve the residents of Carmona as well as surrounding towns and cities.

“Parang Makati, BGC (Bonifacio Global City), central business district, ganung concept ang tinitingnan natin, actually even better. Magtatayo tayo ng office buildings and residential buildings,” said Jose Mari H. Banzon, president of SMPH property development arm, SM Development Corporation (SMDC).

SM Smart City project is reclaiming a total of 726 hectares of land with a 9.2-kilometer shoreline on the Pasay and Paranaque side of Manila Bay.

The project, whch the Sy siblings have envisioned as the “next Hong Kong”, has been on the drawing board since the PNoy administration.

The Pasay City government, SMPH’s partner, approved its side of the project covering roughly 360 hectares with a development cost of P90 billion in December 2019.

But the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020 had forced SMPH to temporarily shelve the project. But with the pandemic and the economy back to normal, SMPH believes it is time to get the project going.

The SM smart city will be linked to the Mall of Asia complex which was built in 2006 on 100 hectares of reclaimed property.

SMPH also has another 360-hectare reclamation project in Manila Bay in Parañaque which it had planned to link to the Pasay project to form what it billed as the “next Hong kong.”

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