Seasoned developer Ortigas & Co. set to create new milestones
A new era dawns for one of the pioneers in the Philippine real estate industry.
With a massive redevelopment plan underway for its four masterplanned estates, Ortigas & Co. is banking on its wealth of experience culled from close to nine decades in operation, the expertise of its adept team, and a clear-cut, ingenious strategy to bring the company to a new level of growth and profitability.
Needless to say, Ortigas & Co. is going full throttle with its plans, earmarking at least P125 billion for the development of three of its four estates.
Premium landbank
As announced earlier, the company would be rolling out a P50-billion masterplan to redevelop “Ortigas East,” the new branding for the 16-ha estate formerly known as Frontera Verde along C5. It has also allocated P60 billion for the redevelopment of the 16-ha Greenhills and another P26 billion for the continued development of its Capitol Commons estate in Pasig City. Its fourth estate meanwhile is the 10-ha Circulo Verde located along Calle Industria in Quezon City.
“What we have left in our portfolio are very prime areas. But what we’re doing now is to optimize the utilization of all these assets,” said Ortigas & Co. president and chief executive officer Jaime E. Ysmael.
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Ysmael pointed out that the original footprint of Ortigas & Co. back in the day covered some 4,000 ha of prime land—which was about four times the size of Makati—spanning several cities in the metro.
“Most were already parceled and sold, but we still have access to a sizable landbank of at least 50 ha within the general Ortigas area, with Greenhills, Capitol Commons, Circulo Verde and Ortigas East. We still have some parcels of land in Ortigas Center including the area where our office is located. We also have access to other areas through a majority-owned subsidiary, Concrete Aggregates Corp., whose 200-ha land in Rizal will eventually be developed into a mixed use community,” Ysmael explained.
New strategy
When two of the biggest real estate companies in the Philippines—Ayala Land Inc. and SM Prime Holdings Inc.—decided to partner with Ortigas & Co. in 2014, a new strategy was crafted to further enrich the company’s assets and sustain growth in key businesses namely real estate development, shopping center management, and office leasing.
The first order of the day for Ysmael, when he was appointed as president and CEO of Ortigas in 2017, was to “to take stock of what we have, try to optimize their intended use, and basically look at the product and the brand.”
“We reviewed all the masterplans of the four major estates, and we also operationalized the estate management concept for accountability… We want to make sure that we create livable, workable, playable communities for our intended customers,” Ysmael explained.
Today, the company has started to reap the benefits from all the hard work and steadfast efforts to further bring Ortigas & Co. to that new level of growth and profitability it aimed for.
Three residential towers, The Royalton, The Imperium, and Maven were launched in Capitol Commons, offering luxury residential towers in Ortigas Center. Estancia, Capitol Commons’ retail component, opened its doors to an excited retail market while also housing 15,000 sqm of prime office spaces on its upper floors.
The redevelopment of the 16-ha Greenhills Shopping Center also began, with units in the first luxury residential tower—The Viridian in Greenhills—currently being turned over to its buyers. Connor, another residential tower in the Greenhills estate, was also launched earlier.
Ortigas East, the latest estate to be redeveloped with a new masterplan, was launched with an initial offering of the first office-for-sale building, The Glaston Tower.
Notable recognitions
And it’s not only the homebuyers and investors who have taken stock of all these positive developments at Ortigas & Co. Award giving bodies also recognized the company’s commitment to excellence, innovations, and competitiveness.
At the 2018 Philippines Property Awards, The Imperium at Capitol Commons won the Best Luxury Condo Architectural Design. It also received Highly Commended citations for Maven (for the Premium Condo of the Year category); The Imperium (Luxe Condo of the Year); and Capitol Commons (Mixed Use Development of the Year).
Ortigas & C0. was also cited for its excellence as the fastest growing real estate developer at the 2018 Japan International Property Awards.
And just last month, Ortigas scored three Bronze Stevie Awards for three projects. Winning bronze in this year’s Asia Pacific Stevies were The Glaston Tower, for Innovation in Business-to-Business Products under the New Product Category; Maple at Verdánt Towers, for Innovation in Consumer Products and Services under the New Product Category; and Ortigas Art Festival, for Innovation in the Use of Events.
There seems to be no stopping Ortigas amid an aggressive, ambitious expansion plan.
As it commits to continue developing choice residential communities, prime commercial areas, and business spaces, one can only expect a more revitalized 88-year-old real estate company that is primed for excellence, market leadership and sustained profitability in years to come.
