SM City Marikina rests on 246 concrete stilts, with its upper ground level set at about 20.5 meters elevation and its lowest parking deck left open for floodwater to pass through. SM Prime set the building 110 meters back from the Marikina River against a 90-meter requirement, and puts the resilience premium at about 15 percent of construction cost.
Typhoon Ondoy tested that design in September 2009. The centre took no damage, staff and tenants reported for work straight after the storm, and SM Investments puts the trading loss avoided at about a billion pesos. The six-hectare property has since served as a reference case for flood-resilient retail, including a United Nations disaster risk reduction case study.
The mall opened on 5 September 2008 as SM Prime’s 31st, timed to the group’s 50th anniversary, on 60,000 square meters of land with 122,000 square meters of floor area and 58,000 leasable. Hans Sy tied the project to Marikina’s shoe trade, which supplied about 70 percent of Shoemart’s stock in the 1960s. SM Prime reports a gross floor area of about 126,000 square meters as of December 31, 2025.
Scott Brownrigg reported in July 2023 that a redevelopment of the façade, atrium and public spaces was under construction, using a Fire Tree concept drawn from Marikina’s streets.
The SM Store and SM Supermarket take the two largest units. Fifty active food brands make up the widest band, from Jollibee, Starbucks, KFC and Max’s Restaurant to Ramen Kuroda, Sbarro and Wendy’s, against 27 in technology and 17 in apparel, with Adidas, Crocs and Skechers on athletic footwear. The city recorded 456,059 residents in the 2020 census and 18,984 registered business establishments in December 2022, 91 of them shoe manufacturers.
