Megaworld starts all-suite boutique hotel in Bacolod

Tycoon Andrew Tan-led property developer Megaworld Corp. is investing P500 million to develop a 48-room all-suite boutique hotel in Bacolod City.

The luxury hotel will rise along the Upper East Avenue of the company’s The Upper East township project by 2022.

Apart from spacious suites, the new hotel will have an all-day dining restaurant, café, courtyard, swimming pool and pool deck, fitness center, lanai, and its own Zabana Bar, Megaworld’s signature hotel bar concept, it said in a statement.

The hotel ballroom, which will be connected to an expansive tropical garden, is seen to become the city’s biggest hotel ballroom facility.  It can fit 1,000 guests in a banquet setting. It can also be divided into three separate ballrooms for smaller event requirements.

The main lobby will be a retrofitted heritage house that used to be the old guest house inside the Bacolod-Murcia Milling Co. compound. An adjacent wing that used to be a guesthouse will be converted into a ballroom facility.

To be designed by heritage architect and conservationist Dominic Galicia, the old structures of the property will undergo “adaptive reuse” to form part of its complex, Megaworld said.

Galicia was the architect of the redesigned building of the National Museum of Natural History in Manila, which opened late last year.

“The entire hotel complex is anchored on the oldest structure, and it expands from this like wings, with the ballroom wing to the left, and the guest room wing to the right.  As a landmark of Bacolod, it will express the noble intent of remembering and anchoring on a glorious past as we move towards what we dream to be a glorious future,” Galicia said.

“This luxury boutique hotel will be another landmark in The Upper East. The hotel will be a perfect venue for conventions, weddings and memorable celebrations as it integrates an outdoor garden setting into its ballroom facility. Megaworld is keen on helping boost the MICE (meetings, incentive, conferences and exhibition) tourism industry of Bacolod,” said Rachelle Peñaflorida, vice president for sales and marketing at Megaworld Bacolod.

Megaworld also announced an upgrade of its first residential condominium development, One Regis.

It is spending P28 billion to develop The Upper East in the next 10 years.—DORIS DUMLAO-ABADILLA