Latest news with #Islands'
GMA Network
12-08-2025
- Business
- GMA Network
SM Prime to spend P7B to redevelop SM Megamall
SM Megamall Building A fifth floor garden will have an ETFE roofing system, a lightweight, highly transparent and eco-friendly alternative to glass that allows more natural light into the indoor garden. SM PRIME SM Prime Holdings Inc. is set to spend some P7 billion to redevelop SM Megamall to adopt a 'Crystal Islands' concept designed by the architectural firm known for developments such as Singapore's Jewel Changi and Thailand's Icon Siam. The redevelopment will be designed by UK-based architectural firm Benoy, emphasizing natural light, open flow, and organic forms, adding 20,000 square meters of gross leasable area. It will have a phased completion targeted between 2027 and 2029. It will also add themed retail zones, and operational upgrades including a new four-level basement parking facility with over 1,600 slots, state-of-the-art cinemas, a new Megatrade Hall, a redesigned food court, and upgraded areas and restrooms. SM Prime said the design also features sustainability initiatives such as a rainwater harvesting system with a 500-cubic-meter capacity, Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) roofing, skylights and clerestory windows, and sensor-activated escalators. According to SM Supermalls president Steven Tan, SM Megamall is still ranked the highest out of all the company's malls in terms of per-square-meter sales, and this is expected to increase even further with the redevelopment. 'We have redevelopment lined up for the next five years now, as well as opening new malls. You know, we always assess the maturity of an existing mall if they are ready for expansion,' he said in a recent briefing. 'It has to have a certain level of maturity in terms of business and a certain occupancy that it has to reach. We have a matrix to go after that, but this is all planned out — not just for this year, and not just for next year, even for the next five years,' he added. Tan also noted that more retailers are expected to take space in SM Megamall with the redevelopment, as it also has the highest waiting list among all the company's malls. 'We always work with our partners when it comes to our rental or leasing of our space. We also always study the sales over rent of the tenants. If the threshold still allows us to increase the rent we normally do that annually, but of course working with our tenant partners is key here,' he said. SM Prime posted an all-time high net income of P24.5 billion in the first half of the year, as strong consumption and the recovery in retail and tourism drove revenues up by 5% to P68 billion. Aside from SM Supermalls, SM Prime's subsidiaries include SM Residences (the umbrella residential arm segment of SMDC, SM Signature Series, and SM Leisure Resort Residences), SM Hotels and Convention Centers, and SM Offices. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News
New York Times
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Lapham's Quarterly Reaches Deal to Live On
When Lewis Lapham died last year, it appeared that his magazine might go with him. Lapham's Quarterly, a beloved journal of history and reportage he started, had stopped putting out issues. The fate of the publication was uncertain without Mr. Lapham, a nattily dressed former editor at Harper's who seemed to personify a bygone era of magazines. But Mr. Lapham's magazine will live on, though under a much different owner. Bard College, a private liberal arts institution in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., is acquiring it at no cost from the American Agora Foundation, the nonprofit that had published the magazine. 'This will benefit all our students,' said Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College. 'To understand how it's possible to talk intelligently, without jargon, without the worst of self-referential academic prose, about important ideas and important controversies and complexities, which we seem not to tolerate today.' Lapham's Quarterly, which was founded in 2007, is something of an oddity, even for the quirky magazine business. Each issue connects a broad, sweeping theme — 'Night,' for example, or 'Happiness' — to current events thorough long-form articles and excerpts from historical texts by writers like Shakespeare. Mr. Lapham had already written the preamble to the latest issue, focused on energy, when he died in July at age 89. Bard College plans to publish that issue in print and has others in development, with the titles 'Islands' and 'Folly.' It's still unclear whether Bard will continue Lapham's Quarterly on its regular print schedule after that. The magazine will be operated by the Hannah Arendt Center, a politics and humanities institution founded by the scholar Roger Berkowitz. One of the most valuable assets owned by the foundation, the list of 17,500 paying subscribers to Lapham's Quarterly, will also pass to Bard, said Paul Morris, the magazine's publisher and executive editor. It is unclear whether any of the 18 or so staff members furloughed when the magazine went on hiatus last year will be hired back. The American Agora Foundation will dissolve. Before he died, Mr. Lapham blessed the transaction with Bard on a call with Mr. Morris. But it took months for Bard to vet copyright issues, said Mr. Morris, who added that his only regret was that Mr. Lapham wasn't around to see the magazine pass into safe hands. 'It's my great lament that he couldn't be here for this conversation,' Mr. Morris said, 'because I know he'd be echoing everything that's been said and adding his own flavor to it.'
