AGRIYA, the agricultural metropolis (agropolis) of Anflo Management and Investment Corporation (Anflocor) at Panabo City, is scheduled to break ground by the end of May, an executive of Damosa Land, Inc. (DLI) said.
The 88-hectare property of Anflocor, which is targeted to be developed into a modern agropolis will soon start with its first phase of development by the end of May.
According to Damosa Land, Inc. vice president Ricardo Floreindo Lagdameo, they plan to first develop the 35 to 40-hectare area of the entire property wherein the University of the Philippines Professional School for Agriculture and the Environment will be included.
Although they are to break grounds soon, Lagdameo said they are to start with the more extensive construction by next year.
“We will start with the initial land developments this year. I would say, heavier construction would start by 2018. But we will start this year. So when we break grounds by the end of May, we will not only be breaking ground for the project but we will also do for the UP Professional School that will be located there. It will be a dual groundbreaking,” he said.
Lagdameo added, for the first phase, aside from the university, they are also going to prioritize the establishment of agri-tourism and the residential component, the former being the centerpiece development of the entire project.
“Basically, we’re doing residential, agri-tourism, institutional, and we’ll probably have some commercial spaces to complement the agri-tourism and the school components,” Lagdameo said.
Agriya is targeted to be the first agritourism city in Asia. When further developed, the area will have working farms as the main feature of its agri-tourism sector, with working banana and other high-value crop plantations.
With the rising of Agriya in Panabo City, Anflocor targets to make agriculture "attractive and sexy" again, emphasizing its importance to everyone and how it significantly integrates into daily lives.
“If you look at Panabo City, they would need a good tourism story. We also want to try and elevate the quality of residential options that are available to them. When they look at our project, it is really a masterplan project. We want to put a real good quality story into Panabo. The way we see it, Panabo is ripe for this kind of development…We wanted to stay very close to that agricultural heritage of Panabo City. And we also really wanted to do something that has not yet been done in the rest of the country,” Lagdameo said. (JPA)