Filinvest Land ups investment in Cebu City

CEBU CITY, Philippines—Gotianun-led Filinvest Land Inc. (FLI) unveiled on Tuesday a revised master plan for the P25-billion mixed-use estate “City de Mare,” its largest real estate development in this city located on reclaimed land at the city’s east coast called South Road Properties (SRP).

In a briefing on Tuesday, FLI chief executive officer Josephine Gotianun-Yap said capital spending for the 40-hectare mixed-use estate had been jacked up from an earlier budget of P15 billion to keep up with “urban trends” as well as to incorporate more office space given the stronger-than-expected demand from the business process outsourcing industry.

The estate was previously intended to be mainly for residential development, targeted to bring to Cebu’s property market 14,000 to 16,000 new residential units.

About 70 percent of the estate is still earmarked for residential development but around 10 percent will now be devoted to office development. The remaining 20 percent will be for retail development, opening up about 55,000 square meters of retail space out of which 36,000 sqm will be the net leasable area that could add to FLI’s portfolio of assets with recurring income.

Just across the “City de Mare” estate is a separate 10-hectare property where FLI is developing the “Il Corso” seaside leisure and retail strip.

Gotianun-Yap is bullish on this “City de Mare” project, a joint venture project with the Cebu City government.

If more land will be offered by the city in this SRP area, she said her group would be interested.

“I think that the development of Cebu City will start to gravitate toward this area because it’s the only area where roads are big and it’s a brand-new development,” she said.

The SRP is a 300-hectare reclamation project of the city government, out of which 240 hectares have so far been reclaimed.