Cebu Holdings mulls building more condos

Cebu Holdings Inc. (CHI) now considers building more condominiums at the Cebu Business Park after the sales success of Park Tower 1 and 2.

"We are inclined to put up condominium projects in CBP, but it is still on the drawing board," said CHI chief operations officer Francis O. Monera.

Monera said there is strong demand for office and residential condominium in Cebu, largely driven by the influx of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) investments, and other Information Technology (IT) outsourcing that comes to operate in Cebu.

In the next year or two, the 50-hectare CBP will be transformed into full business district as six buildings are currently under construction, including already the P1.4 billion worth of condominium project by a Korean company, the Tower Place Residential Condominiums.

Monera said CHI is still calibrating the market, as to when the company will start its condominium project inside the business park.

He said the 50-hectare CBP only has 12 lots left unsold, from a total of 100 lots available since the park was developed over a decade ago.

He however, defended that the plan of the company to put up more condominium in CBP will not affect the marketability of the Korean-developed condominium within the park.

He said the demand is so strong that competition will be overpowered because of the growing clamor for condominiums.

According to Monera, the growth of IT and tourism sectors in Cebu have both benefited the residential and office demand, thus developers are now being re-energized to put in more money for these kinds of projects.

In fact, he said CHI's newly introduced extra-high end residential subdivision in Lilo-an, Cebu has posted an encouraging sales return, with 70 percent take-up of the 86 lots after only few weeks of selling.

CHI posted a 106 percent growth performance for the first half of 2006. The company closed June 2006 with a P114 million net income, compared to the same period of last year's P55.3 million.

Gross revenue for the same period increased by 70 percent to P480 million.

Ayala Center Cebu (ACC), the company's shopping mall component contributed almost half of the total bottom line with P206 million gross revenue contributions for the period.

Other income contributors include sales of commercial and residential lots, condominium units, and sports club shares.