Published on 17 April 2013 [
manilatimes.net ]
Written by MADELAINE B. MIRAFLOR REPORTER
Real estate
giant Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) is eyeing Rizal, Pampanga and Batangas, among other
provinces in Luzon, as prospective areas for expansion in a year or two, a
company top official said.
“We are going
to go the East, including Rizal,” ALI President and Chief Executive Officer
Antonino Aquino said. “In maybe a year or two,” he said.
Aquino also
said that in expanding to the aforementioned areas, “there are still some
discussions that have to be finalized,” emphasizing that the firm’s specific
targets are places where there are going to be a lot of new infrastructure
that’s going to be developed.
“[ALI focuses
on] the major land infrastructure and the moment that it is in place, we would
probably be looking very closely to Rizal. I think you will see us in
Bulacan—the Eastern Bulacan corridor and the original Bulacan. We will be in
each of those nodes,” he said.
“It would
potentially be a mix [of all ALI’s businesses under different segments] in
those players - Bulacan, Pampanga, Cavite, Batangas,” Aquino added.
He mentioned
that ALI intends to precisely have sub-districts in all the major urban
locations in the country.
“The way to
describe it, we started out in Makati, and then we went to Alabang, and then we
had developments in Bonifacio, and then we had developments in Nuvali. So you
might say that the initial directions were pointing South but today, you are
now seeing us going or pointing to all the directions in the compass,” Aquino
said.
“We are going
to be in the North, we are going to be in the East, West. We are going to
leapfrog all of those other locations in Visayas and Mindanao,” he further
said.
Meanwhile,
ALI is also looking to launch its affordable hotel brand in the fourth quarter
of this year, specifying that it intends to boost its presence in the tourism
industry.
“By next
year, we should have 2,000 rooms and we hope to be able to ground break the
affordable brand by fourth quarter of this year,” said Junie Jalandoni,
president of the hotels and resorts arm of ALI.
Jalandoni added
that Ayala Land Hotels and Resorts will offer affordable-brand hotels that it
intends to launch Alabang, Bacolod and Iloilo.
“Maybe by
next year, we are up and running,” he added.
__________________________________________________________
