Sta. Lucia allots P500 M to expand condotel dev’t

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.