Robinsons Galleria
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Robinsons Galleria, also known as Robinsons Galleria Ortigas, is a mixed-use complex and shopping mall located at EDSA corner Ortigas Avenue,
Quezon City Quezon City (, ; fil, Lungsod Quezon ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read in Filipino as Kyusi), is the List of cities in the Philippines, most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a populatio ...
, just near
SM Megamall SM Megamall, simply known as Megamall, is the third largest shopping mall in the Philippines and the thirteenth largest in the world that is developed and operated by SM Prime Holdings. It is located in Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong, Philippi ...
. The mall is owned by
Robinsons Malls Robinsons Malls is one of the largest shopping malls and retail operators in the Philippines. It was incorporated on September 9, 1997, by entrepreneur John Gokongwei Jr. to develop, conduct, operate and maintain the Robinsons commercial sho ...
, and it is their flagship mall. It is the 1st Robinsons Mall to bear the Galleria branding. It was built on January 12, 1990, with a total gross floor area of approximately .


The mall

Robinsons Galleria is a 5-level
shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...
and a landmark along
EDSA Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, commonly referred to by its acronym EDSA, is a limited-access circumferential highway around Manila, the capital city of the Philippines. It passes through 6 of Metro Manila's 17 local government units or citie ...
and
Ortigas Avenue Ortigas Avenue is a highway running from eastern Metro Manila to western Rizal in the Philippines. It is one of the busiest highways in Metro Manila, serving as the main thoroughfare of the metro's east–west corridor, catering ...
with more than 400 shops, dining outlets, entertainment facilities, and service centers. It is located within a mixed-use complex composed of two high-rise office towers, the
Galleria Corporate Center Galleria Corporate Center is a 29-storey office building in Ortigas Center, in Quezon City. It is located beside Robinsons Galleria Robinsons Galleria, also known as Robinsons Galleria Ortigas, is a mixed-use complex and shopping mall located ...
and
Robinsons Equitable Tower The Robinsons Equitable Tower, formerly known as the Robinsons PCI Bank Tower, is an office skyscraper located in Pasig, Philippines. It was completed in 1997 and stands at 175 metres (574 feet), making it the current 2nd-tallest ''complete'' buil ...
. Three hotels are also located among the said towers, the Holiday Inn Manila Galleria and Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria, and the Galleria Regency. A major tenant of the mall is the central
passport office His Majesty's Passport Office (HMPO) is an agency of the Home Office in the United Kingdom. It provides British passport, passports for United Kingdom national, British nationals worldwide and was formed on 1 April 2006 as the Identity and Passp ...
of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Metro Manila called ''DFA Consular Office NCR-Central,'' which is located on the first floor of the ''Lingkod Pinoy Center,'' and which was inaugurated in September 2012.


History

The mall's location was once an open land owned by the SSS in the Ortigas Central Business District. In February 1986, the portion of the land facing EDSA was where participants in the
People Power Revolution The People Power Revolution, also known as the EDSA Revolution or the February Revolution, was a series of popular Demonstration (people), demonstrations in the Philippines, mostly in Metro Manila, from February 22 to 25, 1986. There was a ...
also protested; tanks going north to
Camp Aguinaldo Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo (CGEA), also known as Camp Aguinaldo, is the site of the general headquarters (GHQ) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) located in eastern Metro Manila, the Philippines. It is located in Quezon City alon ...
and
Camp Crame Camp General Rafael T. Crame () is the national headquarters of the Philippine National Police (PNP) located along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) in Quezon City. It is situated across EDSA from Camp Aguinaldo, the national headquarters o ...
were stopped at this spot. In 1987,
John Gokongwei John Robinson Lim Gokongwei Jr. (; 11 August 1926 – 9 November 2019) was a Filipino businessman, investor, and philanthropist. His conglomerate company JG Summit Holdings, Inc., had an extensive panoply of business and investment holdings ac ...
bought the large portion of the land from the SSS, while the
Archdiocese of Manila In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...
had partly purchased the portion of the land near the intersection. This plot today is the site of
EDSA Shrine The Shrine of Mary, Queen of Peace, Our Lady of EDSA, or more popularly, the EDSA Shrine is a small church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila located at the intersection of Ortigas Avenue and Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) in Bara ...
, which belongs to the Archdiocese up to date. Construction began in mid-1988 and finished in late 1989. The mall opened in 1990, being the first mall of Robinsons Malls. Since its opening, several renovations had made within the mall, expanding its area to 216,000 square meters.


Incidents


March 2012 robbery

On March 29, 2012, one guard was killed and six others wounded after two armed robbers lobbed a couple of grenades while fleeing with their loot. The Philippine National Police spokesman Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr. said that by 10:15 AM, two unidentified suspects in disguise as guards attacked two bank guards who were escorting bank tellers and were supposed to deliver an undetermined amount of money in a money changer shop at the mall's ground floor.


October 2013 fire

On October 29, 2013, a fire broke out inside the department store's toy section. The fire started at around 11:00 PM when the employees who were decorating Christmas lights inside the mall rushed out the mall to flee the premises. Guests from the Holiday Inn evacuated and moved to the adjacent Crowne Plaza Hotel. The fire raged for about six hours. The fire was under control the next morning, and the mall was closed for two days. The mall soon reopened by noon on November 1, 2013.


Redevelopment

The mall had gone for several renovations since it opened in 1990. In 2012, the mall took its major facelift with additional GLA of around 100,000 square meters that can cater at least 50 tenants. The said developments expanded the mall's GLA to what is now 216,000 square meters. The latest redevelopment had started in 2016. It will be done in 2 phases with its first phase of renovation from May to October 2016 while the second phase was to start in May 2017. Aside from the major renovations within the mall, the mall veranda will host more service stores related to health and beauty. There will be an upper veranda at the 3rd floor, formerly occupying the sports loop, which will accommodate more dining choices. The mall's renovation is almost complete. The mall's renovation will add wooden elements into the mall, a design similar to
Robinsons Galleria Cebu Robinsons Galleria Cebu, also known and branded as Galleria Cebu, is a shopping mall and mixed-use development located in North Reclamation Area, Cebu City. It is the 2nd Robinsons Mall to bear the ''Galleria'' branding after Robinsons Galleria. ...
.


In popular culture

An urban legend relating to the mall flourished in the 1990s, which claimed of a half-snake, half-human creature that resided in the basement of the mall and purported to be a lucky charm installed by the Gokongwei family, feeding it with unsuspecting victims from a supposed shaft from a dressing room. Among its supposed victims were actresses
Alice Dixson Alice Dixson (born Jessie Alice Dixson; ; July 28, 1969) or often misspelled Alice Dixon, is a Filipino American actress, commercial model, and former beauty queen. Biography Born to an American father and a Filipino mother, she was the Philipp ...
and
Rita Avila Rita Ávila is a Filipino actress and author. Ávila is married to director, Erick Reyes, she had a baby who they named Elia Jesú E. Reyes. The baby died three weeks after being born. She also wrote an inspirational booklet called, ''8 Ways to ...
. Although the rumor is now considered absurd and dead, it was revived in 2010 after a supposed
YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
video depicting it surfaced. Businesswoman Robina Gokongwei-Pe asserted in 2008 that the tale emerged from the "market competition". Dixson herself dismissed the entire narrative as fake, and in 2020 she finally put the entire tale to rest through a YouTube video. She had appeared in a videographic advertisement by Robinsons Galleria two years earlier, poking fun of and lampooning the extinct urban legend.


References

{{Metro Manila malls Shopping malls established in 1990 1990 establishments in the Philippines Buildings and structures in Quezon City Shopping malls in Quezon City Tourist attractions in Quezon City Ortigas Center Robinsons Malls Conspiracy theories in the Philippines Urban legends