Posted on 10:24 PM, January 12, 2011 [ BusinessWorld Online ]
PRIVATELY HELD real estate firm Century Properties, Inc. has officially kick-started its venture into medical tourism, breaking ground for the construction of a $100-million facility in Makati.
“This is our small part -- to start the medical tourism revolution in this country. The potential for health care is unimaginable because everybody needs health care,” Jose E. B. Antonio, chairman of Century Properties, told reporters yesterday.
“We will be an outpatient medical center,” Mr. Antonio said, adding the planned facility will bank on services like anti-ageing and wellness.
The bigger medical centers in Metro Manila -- St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City and Taguig, Makati Medical Center, Medical City in Pasig, and Asian Hospital and Medical Center in Muntinlupa are all inpatient facilities.
But Mr. Antonio said Century Properties has the capacity to build its own medical center, having built and marketed projects like Makati Medical, Medical Plaza Ortigas, and Asian Hospital.
Century Properties yesterday broke ground at the 4,000-square- meter (sq. m.) Centuria Medical Makati site in Century City, the company’s first mixed-use development project.
Mr. Antonio said the property firm expects to sell all clinic spaces in one year after it started pre-selling yesterday.
Clinic spaces measure 25-75 sq. m. on “silver” floors, 32-113 sq. m. on “gold” floors, and 32-187 sq. m. on “platinum” floors. Some units can be combined. The price for a 28-sq.-m. unit is P3.4 million.
“This is for those who need [medical] space that is of world standard.
Our market is not only local but also foreign, where the big potential is,” Mr. Antonio said.
The 28-storey Centuria Medical Makati, touted as a “world-class” outpatient medical arts building for local patients and medical travelers, will have 500 clinics.
“The building will comprise doctors’ clinics specializing in different disciplines of medicine, floors devoted to diagnostic equipment and services, rooms for aesthetic procedures, recovery suites, cafés and restaurants, a VIP lift, and units for other service providers in health, wellness and preventive medicine,” Century Properties said.
Joint-venture partner General Electric Philippines, Inc. will provide equipment, technology and software to manage the outpatient facility.
Turnover of the clinics to buyers will be in late 2014, Mr. Antonio said.
As a Philippine Economic Zone Authority-registered information technology park, Century Properties will allot four storeys or 5,000 sq.
m. to IT service firms in medical transcription, archiving, and patient information systems.
Medical tourism is a $2-trillion industry in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and India, the firm said. The Philippines earned $25.3 million in revenues from medical tourism last year, of which 60% came from foreigners, Century Properties said.
The unlisted Century Properties is a 25-year-old real estate developer focused on the high-end residential condominium market.
It has more than 40 projects in its portfolio, including the Essensa East Forbes and South of Market in Fort Bonifacio, and The Casitas and The Moderno at San Lazaro Leisure Park in Carmona, Cavite. -- Neil Jerome C. Morales
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