Pandemic fails to stop Arthaland from fulfilling 5-year growth goal

Despite the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, boutique property developer Arthaland Corp. expects to complete this year a five-year program to double its footprint with the rollout of two new luxury residential projects, one each in the central business districts of Makati and Cebu.

During the company’s stockholders’ meeting on Friday, Arthaland president Jaime Gonzalez reported the upcoming launch of Lucima in Cebu Business Park by this third quarter, thus bringing to the market 263 residential units and a gross floor area of about 28,000 square meters.

Arthaland is likewise launching this third quarter a new residential project in Legazpi Village in Makati, offering 37 residential units and a total gross floor area of about 14,600 square meters.

These projects are seen to allow Arthaland to meet its objective of scaling up its development space by five times within five years, a commitment made in 2016 when the company raised fresh equity from the public offering of preferred shares.

Meeting targets

Despite quarantine restrictions in 2020, Gonzalez said Arthaland had set itself apart from other developers by meeting delivery targets to buyers. Phase 1 of office condominium project Cebu Exchange had been successfully handed over to buyers based on its prepandemic delivery date, he noted.

As of end-June 2021, Arthaland has completed 88 percent of Cebu Exchange. The entire development is expected to be operational by the fourth quarter of 2021.

Phase 2, which covers the 16th floor to the roofdeck, is on track for turnover to buyers by the second quarter of 2022.

In February 2021, Arthaland also marked the structural topping off of Savya Financial Center’s North Tower. Since then, Gonzales said substantial accomplishments had been made, allowing the firm to achieve a 48-percent completion rate as of June 2021. Arthaland expects to meet its delivery date for the North Tower by fourth quarter of 2021 and completion of the South Tower by fourth quarter of 2022.93-percent completed

For Sevina Park, the company’s 8.1-hectare master-planned sustainable community in Biñan, Laguna province, Arthaland has achieved 93-percent completion of site development for the entire estate as of June 2021. Construction work for the first phase of the Sevina Park Villas is now in full swing. “We are on schedule to hand over the first batch of units of the villas by fourth quarter of 2021. In addition to the villas, the Courtyard Hall was completed in 2018 and the sales gallery was completed in 2019,” Gonzalez said.

The market served by Arthaland, Gonzalez pointed out, had not been significantly impaired by the pandemic. Cancellation rates stood at less than 5 percent of total reservations sales for Cebu Exchange and Sevina Park Villas. For Savya Financial Center’s North Tower, cancellation rate was less than 2 percent of reservation sales.

—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla