MANILA, Philippines - After slowing
down on residential construction, Gokongwei-led property firm Robinsons Land
Corp. is recalibrating its growth strategy and beefing up its landbank to build
a strong pipeline of work in the commercial segment.
“We’re more aggressive now. We’re
embarking on landbanking to ensure sufficient land capacity for development,”
said Frederick D. Go, president of RLC.
Go said the company remains in talks
with Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada for the latter’s $2-billion casino
project in the Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corp.’s Entertainment City
along Roxas Blvd. RLC is considering running the retail and hotel operations
for Okada’s project.
In April, RLC said it was inherently
cautious about the short-term outlook for the residential real estate market
and would rather focus on expanding its shopping mall, office building and
hotel operations, which account for more than 65 percent of the group’s total
revenues.
RLC is building seven new shopping
malls and expanding three of its existing malls to capitalize on strong
consumer spending and a growing business process outsourcing industry. Of the
seven, three will be built this year while the other four will rise in 2013.
The expansion of the retail portfolio
will increase the group’s total mall leasable area to a little over a million
square meters (sqm) in two years.
RLC recently completed two mall
expansion projects in Tacloban and Bacolod.
Together with the two expansion
projects, RLC’s total gross leasable area (GLA) is seen to reach 911,000 sqm at
end-September this year. In 2013, RLC will add another 100,000 sqm to bring the
total GLA to 1.01 million sqm.
For the office segment, RLC is
completing Cyberscape Alpha and Cyberspace Beta in Ortigas by mid-2013.
As for its Go Hotel chain, the company
is looking to build four this year in line with plans to hit a 30-branch
network over the next five years.
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