[5] Cuenca of Resort Hotel and John Gokongwei of Robinsons Investment Corporation sued the DBP in 1990 in a bid to block the sale of the lot to SM.

[5] Baguio Representative Bernardo Vergara, however, welcomed in early 1993 the potential construction of a shopping mall and hotel complex by Sy's Shoemart Group.

[9] SM City Baguio also has Sky Ranch on a 5,500 m2 (59,000 sq ft) lot beside the mall, along Rambakan Drive.

New Golden City serves as general contractors while DA Abcede and Associates with SM's own engineering group were also involved in the project.

Upon its opening, it six levels with 106,231 square metres (1,143,460 sq ft) of retail space and parking slots for 800 vehicles.

[12] On April 13, 2012, environmental activists "occupied" SM City North EDSA, but they were dispersed violently, with the sound system playing the tune of Bad Meets Evil's song, Lighters featuring Bruno Mars.

The protesters were divided into sx groups and wore T-shirts bearing assigned words so that when they converge, they form a "walking call" like "Leave me alone, I'm pine!"

In a letter, Yangot stated that an online petition on Facebook is circulating, asking Sting to change his Manila concert venue, because the MOA Arena is owned by the SM group which Project Save 182 had sued because of the mall expansion.

The environmental group Cordillera Global Network (CGN) were able to secure a temporary restraining order for the tree cutting in April 2012 from the Court of Appeals via their petition.

The restraining order only lasted until December 2014 when the Court of Appeals dismissed the petition of CGN when it failed to prove that the permits were tainted with irregularity.

[17] The Cordillera Global Network raised their petition to the Supreme Court which granted a temporary restraining order March 24, 2015.

[18][19] On April 10, 2019, SM has been permanently banned by the Supreme Court from cutting and earth balling of trees at Luneta Hill.