SM Mall of Asia

Also known as: MOA — the universal short form, used by SM itself in brandings from MOA Eye to MOA Sky · The Mall of Asia — the styling common in early coverage, including the mall's own opening-era materials · SM MOA — the chain-brand composite used in SM Prime reporting

Business

Definition

SM Mall of Asia (MOA) is the flagship shopping mall of SM Prime Holdings in Bay City, Pasay — a reclaimed waterfront district along Manila Bay at the southern terminus of EDSA — opened on May 21, 2006 with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo leading the inauguration alongside founder Henry Sy Sr., Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, and Pasay mayor Wenceslao Trinidad. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, Philippine Star — GMA Inaugurates MOA) Built at a reported cost of ₱6.5 billion on a 19.5-hectare site as the SM chain’s 25th supermall, its originally marketed claim as the “largest shopping mall in the world” was downsized in construction, but the finished complex — four buildings linked by elevated walkways, carrying the country’s first IMAX theater and first Olympic-sized ice-skating rink — still drew nearly one million visitors on its grand opening, and by SM Prime’s September 2025 reporting carried a gross floor area of about 497,000 square meters, ranked the largest shopping mall in the Philippines and second-largest in Southeast Asia. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, Philippine Star — GMA Inaugurates MOA, Philippine Star — 1M on Opening Day)

The mall anchors a wider complex that has grown into a mixed-use district: the SMX Convention Center (opened November 5, 2007), the SM Mall of Asia Arena (opened June 16, 2012), the 55-meter MOA Eye ferris wheel (opened December 17, 2011), the MOA Square building housing the world’s largest IKEA store (opened November 25, 2021), the E-Com office towers, a university campus, a hotel, and the elevated MOA Sky deck (re-inaugurated February 25, 2025) — the landmark complex the standard account describes as serving “one of Henry Sy’s vision to build a landmark within Metro Manila.” (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, Straits Times — World’s Biggest IKEA, SM Supermalls — MOA Sky)

Identities

Authority	Value
Wikipedia	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_Mall_of_Asia
Wikidata	SM Mall of Asia (Q1435577)
DBpedia	N/A
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	N/A
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

MOA — the universal short form, used by SM itself in brandings from MOA Eye to MOA Sky
The Mall of Asia — the styling common in early coverage, including the mall’s own opening-era materials
SM MOA — the chain-brand composite used in SM Prime reporting

Examples and Analogies

A mall built as a district rather than a building: MOA’s designers (the architecture firm Arquitectonica) laid out four separate buildings — the Main Mall, the North and South Parking buildings, and the Entertainment Center — linked by elevated walkways, so the complex reads like a small downtown on the reclamation rather than a single enclosed box. (Philippine Star — GMA Inaugurates MOA, Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)
The Philippines’ first-mall machine at flagship scale: the complex carried the country’s first IMAX theater and first Olympic-sized skating rink at opening, the pattern of premieres SM repeated there later with the first IMAX with Laser reopening (November 2024) and the first Disney Store in Southeast Asia (September 2024) — the flagship as a stage for national firsts. (Philippine Star — GMA Inaugurates MOA, Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)
Verified complex data:
Location: Bay City, Pasay — Central Business Park I-A, a reclaimed area along Manila Bay at EDSA’s southern terminus
Opening: May 21, 2006 (a planned March 3, 2006 inauguration was postponed); nearly one million visitors on the grand opening
Scale at opening (2006): ₱6.5-billion cost; 19.5-hectare site; about 386,000–400,000 square meters; SM’s 25th supermall; about 5,000 parking slots; some 20,000 jobs expected
Scale today: about 497,000 m² gross floor area for the mall proper (SM Prime, September 2025), plus 157,000 m² listed separately for MOA Square; largest mall in the Philippines, second-largest in Southeast Asia
Components: SMX Convention Center (November 5, 2007); MOA Eye, 55 m, 36 air-conditioned gondolas (December 17, 2011); SM Mall of Asia Arena, 16,000 seated and 20,000 full-house capacity (June 16, 2012); MOA Square with the world’s largest IKEA (November 25, 2021); MOA Sky deck (February 25, 2025)
Civic anchor: the Archdiocesan Shrine of Jesus, on land donated by Henry Sy and his wife, envisioning a wish Pope John Paul II expressed during his 1995 World Youth Day visit (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, Philippine Star — GMA Inaugurates MOA, Philippine Star — 1M on Opening Day, Straits Times — World’s Biggest IKEA, SM Supermalls — MOA Sky)

Usage Scenarios

1. Shopping, Leisure, and Tourism

Visitors use the complex as the country’s benchmark destination mall — the bayfront promenade, the MOA Eye, the Olympic-sized rink, and the Sunset-quoting deck spaces make it a tourist itinerary item in its own right, the role Henry Sy envisioned for the site and this wiki’s SM Mall and Manila Bay entries frame from their own sides. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, SM Supermalls — MOA Sky)

2. Events, Conventions, and Arena Spectacles

Organizers route national events through the complex’s venues: conventions and exhibitions at the SMX Convention Center, and arena-scale entertainment and sport at the SM Mall of Asia Arena — host of the 65th Miss Universe pageant on January 30, 2017 and a main UAAP and PBA venue — with the MOA Sky Amphitheater adding an open-air stage above the complex. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, SM Supermalls — MOA Sky)

3. Studying Mall-Led Urban Development

Researchers treat the MOA complex as the country’s clearest case of a mall as city-building instrument: the reclaimed Bay City site grew offices (the E-Com towers, from 2008), a university campus (2019), a hotel (2023), a church, and a rooftop sports deck (2025) around the retail anchor — private infrastructure playing the role of a downtown’s public realm. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)

Strategies

Build the destination, not the store: SM Prime’s plan for MOA — begun in planning in 1995, construction from 2002 — aimed at a “premiere destination mall in the Asia-Pacific region,” betting that the complex would generate its own traffic on a then-empty reclamation, the same bet Henry Sy had placed at SM City North EDSA in 1985. (Philippine Star — GMA Inaugurates MOA, Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)
Expand in phases, not at once: the complex accreted over two decades — SMX in 2007, the E-Com offices from 2008, the Arena and Eye in 2011–2012, cinema expansions in 2016–2020, MOA Square and IKEA in 2021, the hotel in 2023, MOA Sky in 2025 — each phase capitalized on the last one’s foot traffic. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)
Use anchor tenancy to reclaim superlatives: the ₱7-billion MOA Square building and its IKEA — at about 730,000 square feet the world’s largest — restored the “largest mall in the Philippines” title in 2021, an anchor-driven records strategy rather than a floor-area race. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, Straits Times — World’s Biggest IKEA)
For visitors: plan around the complex’s scale — four linked buildings, the Level 4 sky deck, and the arena-convention calendar — since a single visit cannot cover the district; and for researchers, date every size or ranking claim to its source year, as this entry does. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)

Security and Safety Measures

The 2006 structural verification episode: the mall’s planned March 3, 2006 inauguration was postponed after engineers reported cracks beneath the structure — reports Pasay City’s engineering department denied — and the opening moved to May 21, 2006; the episode remains the complex’s founding safety precedent: verification before opening, whatever the marketing calendar. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)
Incident record and response: the complex’s documented incidents include ceiling damage injuring an 11-year-old (September 15, 2013), the “Martilyo Gang” jewelry-store robbery (March 30, 2014), a restaurant fire (February 13, 2018), and a ceiling collapse amid heavy rain (October 2, 2018) — the incident classes that mall security and engineering operations are organized around. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)
Concert-ground crowd safety: the open grounds’ deadliest event, the May 22, 2016 Close-Up Forever Summer concert at which five people died, fixed crowd-control, medical-response, and event-organizer accountability as standing requirements for the complex’s outdoor-venue operations. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)
Million-visitor opening logistics: the grand-opening crowd of nearly one million pedestrians — exceeding the combined typical weekend traffic of SM Megamall and SM North EDSA — set the template for the crowd-management scale the complex’s parking, walkway, and security systems were sized against. (Philippine Star — 1M on Opening Day)

Historical Context

The complex traces to 1995 planning for a reclamation-front flagship — marketed early as what would be the “largest shopping mall in the world” — with construction beginning in 2002 after delays and downsizing. A planned March 3, 2006 inauguration was postponed over reported cracks (which city engineers denied), and the mall opened on May 21, 2006 under President Arroyo’s inauguration, drawing nearly a million people on its grand opening as SM Prime’s 25th supermall, the fourth along the EDSA corridor after SM Makati, SM City North EDSA, and SM Megamall. Henry Sy and his wife donated the land for the Archdiocesan Shrine of Jesus within the complex, realizing a wish Pope John Paul II voiced during his 1995 World Youth Day visit to the adjacent Manila Bay reclamation. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, Philippine Star — GMA Inaugurates MOA, Philippine Star — 1M on Opening Day)

The complex then accreted its present form: the SMX Convention Center opened November 5, 2007 as a ₱900-million facility; the One E-Com office tower followed in 2008; the MOA Eye turned in December 2011; the Arena opened June 16, 2012 and hosted the 65th Miss Universe pageant on January 30, 2017; cinema renovations ran 2016–2020; MOA Square opened November 24, 2021 with the world’s largest IKEA following on November 25, 2021, restoring the largest-mall-in-the-Philippines title the complex had last held in 2006–2008; the National University campus arrived in 2019 and the Lanson Place hotel in 2023; and the MOA Sky rooftop — FIFA-grade pitch, amphitheater, and solar array — was re-inaugurated February 25, 2025. The founder did not live to see the later phases: Henry Sy died on January 19, 2019, and the complex stands, in the standard account’s phrasing, as one of his visions of a Metro Manila landmark — the founder’s career treated in this wiki’s entry on Henry Sy. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, Straits Times — World’s Biggest IKEA, SM Supermalls — MOA Sky)

Challenges and Controversies

The Postponed Opening and the Cracks Report

The complex’s birth controversy was structural: weeks before the planned March 3, 2006 opening, engineers were reported to have found “huge cracks underneath the structure,” prompting SM Prime to delay the opening to May 21, 2006 — while Pasay City’s engineering office denied ever stating the structure had defects. The unresolved dispute between the reported findings and the official denial remains the documented record. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)

Ranking Claims and Their Dates

MOA’s superlatives shift with the measurer and the year: “largest in the Philippines” (2006–2008, regained 2021), “second-largest in Southeast Asia” after Malaysia’s IOI City Mall, “sixth-largest in the world” per one cited list — against an original 1990s marketing of “largest in the world” that construction downsized. Floor areas differ by source (about 386,000–400,000 m² at opening; 497,000 m² plus 157,000 m² for MOA Square in 2025 reporting), so every claim must carry its date and definer. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia, Philippine Star — 1M on Opening Day)

Incident-Driven Safety Scrutiny

The complex’s scale has made its incidents national news: the 2013 and 2018 ceiling failures, the 2014 Martilyo Gang robbery, the 2018 restaurant fire, and above all the five deaths at the May 2016 Close-Up Forever Summer concert — the record against which the complex’s crowd-control and structural-maintenance regimes are publicly judged. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)

A Private Downtown on Public Claims

As the MOA complex has absorbed civic functions — a shrine church, a university campus, convention and sports infrastructure on a waterfront reclamation — critics of Philippine mall culture note that the country’s most-used “public spaces” are privately governed, an issue this wiki’s SM Mall entry carries as the group-wide question. (Wikipedia — SM Mall of Asia)