Wednesday, November 29, 2006 Group eyes completion of Banilad project in ’08
A consortium, composed mainly of international companies, is investing more than a billion pesos in Cebu for a development project that it describes to be the “first of its kind in the country.”
Ciudad — a joint venture development of the Cebu Provincial Government and Fifth Avenue Property Development Corp. (Fifth Avenue) that blends culture, entertainment, retail, dining and architecture — will rise along Banilad Road, Cebu City. (Please see related story on A10.)
Fifth Avenue is composed of foreign companies WLG Singapore, a leisure company; IPay Limited Hong Kong, a financing company; China Team, a construction company; and the Dino family of Cebu.
Lawyer Jose Allado Jr., consortium spokesman, said the estimated cost of the development is around P1.2 billion. This excludes the cost of the construction of a business class hotel inside the 2.8-hectare development.
He said in an interview after the project’s ground-breaking yesterday that Ciudad is an entirely new concept, which has not been introduced in the country.
“We want to develop a destination, where people can visit Cebu in one day. It will have restaurants, coffee shops, retail stores, a museum and many leisurely spots that depict the Cebuano culture,” Allado said.
Jose Danilo Silvestre, principal architect of DA Silvestre Associates, said Fifth Avenue aims to complete the project in December next year. Construction will start in January.
Turnover
“We want to turn over to the retail tenants their space by August so that they can do the necessary additions and preparations for the opening in December (next year),” he said.
DA Silvestre takes care of the architecture details of the Ciudad.
Silvestre said the mercadillo, where retail establishments selling the best Cebu products will be found, have a space for 60 tenants. To date, the company has more than 1,000 applicants for the space.
Allado also said Fifth Avenue is inviting investors to bid for the construction and management of the business hotel. At present, there are four bidders — three foreign companies and a local firm.
He said the consortium envisions the hotel to be four or five stories high and will have 300 rooms.
“This (hotel) would take (us) longer but we hope to have it standing by 2008,” Allado said.
He revealed that the consortium initially wanted to invest in an autoshop at the north reclamation area in Cebu City. But failure in the negotiations over a parcel of the reclaimed Cebu City property led them to the Province-owned lot where the Cebu International School used to be.
Allado said Ciudad is a build-transfer-operate project.
Its contract with the Provincial Government allows Fifth Avenue to lease the property for 25 years with an option to renew for another 25 years.
The Province will also have a share in the con-sortium’s revenues from the development’s operations. (JBN)
