By Zinnia B. Dela Peña (The Philippine Star) Updated December 15, 2011 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - Real estate developer Ortigas & Co. is spending P25 billion over a 15-year period to transform a 10-hectare property at the southern end of the Ortigas business district into a high-end, modern residential, retail and office complex to be called Capital Commons.
In a briefing yesterday, Joey Santos, general manager of the real estate division of Ortigas & Co., said the master-planned mixed-use community, envisioned to become the next address of choice in the Ortigas/Pasig area, will have over 280,000 square meters of residential units, some 35,000 sqm. of prime retail space and 20,000 sqm of office space for knowledge process outsourcing firms.
Santos said the retail component will comprise a high-end shopping mall that will open its doors to the public in 2013. Estimated to cost around P2 billion, the mall, dubbed Estancia, will have Store Specialists as its anchor store. The supermarket, on the other hand, will be anchored by Unimart while the entertainment component, comprising the cinemas, will be handled by the same group operating Promenade in Greenhills.
“Capitol Commons would have the first high-end shopping mall in Pasig City and we are glad to be contributing to its economic growth. In cooperation with the Pasig local government and Mayor Bobby Eusebio, Ortigas has helped pledged to build a road on the Meralco side of its property to essentially widen Meralco Ave, thus easing traffic,” Santos said.
Three to five floors above the shopping mall will accommodate knowledge process outsourcing companies. Three-basement level parking spaces, on the other hand, will allow for as much as 700 slots.
For the residential component, the group is developing five premier tower buildings, the first of which, Royalton, will cost P2.5 billion. It will be 65-storys high, housing 400 studio, one- and two-bedroom units.
The property located along Shaw Blvd. in Pasig City formerly housed the Rizal provincial capitol.
This project is part of the group’s aggressive redevelopment program for its vast properties to maximize their values and further boost long-term growth. Ortigas & Co. has earmarked a total of P25 billion each for four new flagship projects for a total of P100 billion over the next 10 years.
Ortigas & Co. developed some of the most posh villages in Pasig and San Juan, including Valle Verde, Greenmeadows, the Greenhills subdivisions, as well San Juan’s most loved lifestyle destination, the Greenhills Shopping Center. In 2009, it began the construction of Circulo Verde, a 12-hectare, mixed-used, master-planned community in Bagumbayan, Quezon City.
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