Landco Pacific setting its sights on rich and successful

MANILA, Philippines - There’s one thing that Alfred “Alby” Xerez-Burgos III believes in, it’s that every person should have the time to spend with their families, enjoy activities together while appreciating God’s gift of nature.

“People really work hard and save up for the future,” he observes, “and when they succeed, they surely spend for much-needed leisure, which is really something every person needs.”

Xerez-Burgos must have had enough feel for the need for leisure, considering that his real estate company has various projects spanning from north to south of the Philippines and that he headed its sales and marketing department before he took its reigns in 2009.  

The 44-year-old businessman is the second-generation president and CEO of high-end real estate developer and planner Landco Pacific Corp., the company that coined and popularized real estate terms “residential resorts,” “leisure farms,” and “leisure tourism estates.”

His father, Alfred Xerez-Burgos Jr., founded Landco in 1990, reportedly with just P500,000 capital, and when most of the country’s central business districts were still in the infancy stage.  The firm initially engaged in the planning and management of shopping malls, specifically, Pacific Malls in the provinces, The Tutuban Center, and Filinvest Festival Mall, for major real estate developers.  

Quality living

But Landco soon scaled up its operations to include development of exclusive luxury villages outside Metro Manila, setting its sights on affluent and successful Filipinos as a niche market.

Landco started to make a mark in the real estate industry in 1994, when it tied up with Metro Pacific Investments Corp., chaired by business leader Manuel V. Pangilinan.

In 1997, Landco introduced upscale resort living with its Spanish-Mediterranean-themed Peninsula de Punta Fuego along the coast of Nasugbu, Batangas. It was a joint-venture with property manager and fellow Filipino upscale developer Roxaco Land Corp. It’s also the country’s first private seaside resort community development, made up of about 250 houses that cost up to a million dollars each.  Again, the project attracted many homecoming professionals who had migrated abroad. It also lured local celebrities, says Xerez-Burgos.

Landco quickly followed this project up in 2001, with the Asian-Tropical themed Terrazas de Punta Fuego community, also in Nasugbu, Batangas. This covered Amara en Terrazas, the first luxury seaside condominium in the country.

Also in 2001, Landco introduced another lifestyle property concept, patterned from Xerez-Burgos’ masteral thesis at the Asian Institute of Management in 1999. Landco then turned a non-performing asset into what it calls now, Leisure Farms in Lemery, Batangas, the country’s first hobby-farming community.  This brought out the weekend farmers in successful professionals, some of whom were from Metro Manila. 

In 2003, this project was followed by Landco’s yet another novel development, the Ponderosa Leisure Farms in Silang, Cavite.  It’s the country’s first flower garden residential community, inspired by the vibrant Spanish-Mexican countryside.

“We always try to bring opportunity for quality living because we live in very stressful times,” says Xerez-Burgos, who loves travel, good food, and fine wine, himself. “We have to remember that our prospective clients, who are successful in their careers and mostly well-travelled, only want the best things in life.  We have to constantly work to meet their demands and we only want to give the best projects that they deserve.”

Brand promise

While major property developers in the country are currently shifting to low-to-medium-scale developments amid rising local housing demand, Landco is sticking with its luxury brand.  

“There are still a lot of affluent people, who live close by and need our kind of property development,” says Xerez-Burgos. Landco is even setting aside P9 billion capital expenditure for the next five years for additional projects and to complete current ones.

Landco’s most recent high-end, exclusive private residential development is the Somerset in Waterwood Park in Baliuag, Bulacan. But this one is targeted more for start-up families, who want to live luxuriously in the outskirts of Metro Manila.

New wave

In 2008, Landco got into the next wave of the local real estate industry. It put up a series of the country’s first planned leisure-tourism estates, two in Luzon and one in Mindanao, offering modern seaside leisure amenities to both local and foreign tourists.  

The first one, Playa Calatagan Leisure Tourism Estate in Calatagan, Batangas, now features a world-class aqua park called Aquaria, open for all-year-round entertainment, and a seaside condominium building called Nautilus. Hotels are likewise set to rise in this well-planned, mixed-used commercial estate, where other developers are welcome to come in.  

The now almost 25-year-old company plans to replicate its Playa Calatagan tourism hub with its similar developments called Playa Laiya in San Juan, Batangas, and Playa Azalea in Samal Island, Davao.  

Xerez-Burgos says another thing that sets Landco’s clientele apart from the rest – aside from disposable income and, perhaps, the Ilocano’s kind of sense of value-for-money – is zest for life or giving importance to time for family, relaxation, and enjoyment of God’s creations.