By Richmond Mercurio (The Philippine
Star) | Updated September 15, 2014 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - Property firm
Sta. Lucia Land Inc. (SLI) is pouring in P500 million to expand its condotel
development in the Mindanao region.
SLI president and chief executive
officer Exequiel D. Robles said Sta. Lucia Land is investing P500 million to
put up its first condotel project in Davao City.
SotoGrande Hotel Suites is a 15-story
condotel project to be situated within the 60-hectare Davao Riverfront
Corporate City complex.
SLI’s current list of operational
condotels in the country includes La Breza in Quezon City, and La Mirada and
Sotogrande in Cebu City.
SLI, one of the country’s biggest
subdivision developers with some 250 subdivision projects nationwide, plans to
bank on the development of more condotels in the country as it believes that
the mix of hotel and residential units translates to better returns compared to
a whole building that is solely a condominium or hotel.
Aside from Sotogrande Hotel Suites in
Davao City, the company is also lining up more condotel projects in Cebu,
Tagaytay, Cainta in Rizal, Quezon City, Katipunan, and Pasig.
Robles said investing in Davao is due
to strong tourism and booming business sector which the region is experiencing.
“Davao is the future of the Philippine
economy. The economy of Davao is booming and standard of living there is still
cheap,” Robles said.
The 2,444-square kilometer Davao City
is currently home to 1.5 million residents and enjoys strong economic growth
partly driven by tourism and recreational activities like retirement villages,
theme parks, agri-tourism parks, mountain and leisure resorts, and hotel and
convention facilities.
To date, SLI’s projects in Davao alone
cover about 700 hectares of land area.
The listed property firm owned by the
Robles and Santos families has earmarked P2 billion as its capex budget for
this year, higher than the P1.35 billion it allotted in 2013. It is further
hiking its capex next year to P3 billion.
____________________________________________________________
