Colon mall opens after P20-M facelift

AMID competition from new malls in Metro Cebu, one of the oldest establishments in Colon Street was relaunched on Sunday after a P20 million makeover.

Colonnade Shopping Mall along Colon Street, Cebu City benefited from a major upgrade to ensure more convenient shopping for customers.

“People still go downtown despite the opening of new malls and the expansion of major malls here in Cebu. We are still confident that there is an undying market that will continue to shop in Colon,” said Valerinao “Bobit” Avila, vice president of Colon Heritage Realty Corp. which owns the mall.

Avila said the Colonnade Shopping Mall has been repositioned to be a shopping mall for everyone.

“Our general manager BJ Canizares wants the mall to be known as ‘everybody’s’ mall and we have put in place all the needed renovations to do that,” said Avila.

With 6,000 square meters of leasable space, 90 percent is already occupied by different shops.

“We are zoning every floor to make shopping more convenient,” Avila said.

The first floor houses fashion shops and boutiques, electronic gadgets and some food outlets. On the second floor are services shops like Western Union and LBC. The third floor is occupied by computer shops and travel and tour shops.

Aside from being “everybody’s mall”, Avila said the company aims to aim to make the Colonnade the “chess capital” of Cebu where people can go and play chess or join competitions.

“There is no single place in Cebu where chess lovers go so we want to make our property a venue for that,” he said.

Renovations are also being planned for the Oriente Theater, which the company also owns.

“We might do some more renovations in that area, perhaps make the theater house smaller and make space available for other purposes,” he said. /Reporter Aileen Garcia-Yap