How Arca South is in sync with the race of life

MANILA, Philippines - With plenty of negative buzz generated by traffic and urban gridlocks in our social media feeds daily, it seems like no amount of Waze and means can help us imagine a place in the metro where there’s thoughtful urban planning, room for professional progress or personal growth, or even simply an avenue for stress-free daily living. Yet, ever the landscape-shifter, Ayala Land reinstates its vision of making us rethink our growingly cynical concepts of CBDs, with, curiously, an interactive race to a finish line.

“It’s something new. It’s a mobile app-based adventure run, where we want to best showcase our new development,” explains Ayala Land’s project development manager Stephen Comia. SyncRUNize adventure run is set to cement the new Arca South development in Taguig in the city maps. Since running is the only way we can have a sense of absolute city freedom these days, perhaps this is a step in the right direction for the 27-year-old real estate developers.

“We’re trying to be in sync with the needs of our residents, employees and locators. So, basically, everything you need, as a resident or employee, you will have here at Arca South. Maybe I can call it an ‘Intelligent City’ wherein all the systems or requirements are integrated,” Comia says. Arca south’s clever blueprint utilizes new technology to better elevate the experiences of urban living.

“All the estate requirements will be housed under one roof. We will have an operations center wherein the security, the CCTV, traffic and property management will be controlled, all in one roof. For example, with the traffic, we can actually announce the situations in our media boards in real time. If there are sales in our malls or among our merchants, we can actually announce them to everyone by a click of the button. So, whatever is happening in the city, at any given point, we will know, and we can also cascade it down to the end user,” Comia shares. This is what he believes as a city “in sync.”

Since its groundbreaking last year, the 74-hectare Arca South estate had already plotted the provisions for a harmonized community by mixing residential, commercial, and corporate components in a relaxed blueprint. “Arca South will be an alternative to the skyscraper CBDs in the metro. Our buildings here would be midrise, and about 40 percent of the development will be dedicated to open spaces,” Comia assures.

“Ayala Land committed all of its products, from retail to office spaces, hotels and hospitals to be developed all in one place, and all at the same time,” he adds, speaking of a coordinated neighborhood of Ayala Land’s three residential brands: the mid-priced Avida, the emergent Alveo, and the high-end Ayala Premiere, while complementing them with wired BPO offices, a landmark Ayala Mall, and a hospital. “We’re designing this to be an in-city campus development, and a development that is attuned to all the needs and the requirements of our future employees, residents and locators,” Comia reaffirms.

This will be a well-suited track for a five-kilometer race that challenges one’s usual need for speed with smart obstacles and brawny challenges that go beyond one’s given agilities. “The SyncRUNize route will be a total of five kilometers. It will run throughout the whole Arca South development, and it will have a mix of both mental and physical challenges. At the end of the race, we will be giving all the participants Wi-Fi access so they can sync all their results in our system, and we will tabulate and announce the winners,” explains Arca South’s marketing manager Jennifer Chua. The revolutionary new race makes tinkering with your smartphone as well as brushing up on your cross-fit exercises as vital in victory as your mad marathon skills.

Guerilla Race’s Dennis Bumanlag peppered the racetrack with military-standard drills that further add to the SyncRUNize traction. From standard-issue monkey bars to a few mountaineer maneuvers courtesy of outdoor brand North Face, the military colonel makes sure the race is every bit challenging for racers aged seven to 70. “We will have marshals in each of the stations. We considered all the kid participants of this race. For the other participants, you can actually help each other. In fact, you can even help you competitors. Because what we are also promoting here is camaraderie within the competition,” Bumanlag guarantees.

Every racer may need all the help they can get, as SyncRUNize is also littered with mind-bending questions that may pop up anytime in the race as part of the obstacles, powered by its own interactive app. “Imagine when you’re running and you’re tired, and you’re asked these simple questions like Philippine holidays or Math equations,” says GoGo Hunt’s Mike Yu who, with his team, designed the race app. While there can be a way to cheat the system, it’s going to cause the runner some precious points. “Once you register and download the app, the app can function even while offline. You can choose to skip all the challenges, but your time will be based on the slowest percentage,” Yu adds.

You’d probably want to skip these costly shortcuts, as the SyncRUNize race has over P90,000 in cash and prizes in store. “For those who will be participating in the race, you can now download our app in the Play Store, or iOS starting Sept. 18,” reminds Jenny Chua, as the SyncRUNize app proves more important than your running sneakers for this specific race.

For interested participants, the first-ever SyncRUNize race comes with a registration fee of P1,100 for individual racers and P990 for groups of four. These fees come with an added advantage, as 10 percent of the registration proceeds will benefit HERO Foundation.

“HERO is actually an acronym that stands for, ‘Help Educate Rear Orphans’ and we’ve been providing education assistance, since 1988, for children of soldiers killed in action. We have a lot of soldiers who fall in the line of duty, just to make sure we sleep soundly at night. If through this race, we can do something to share and give back, and let our soldiers know that we care, I think that really sends a strong message that we support them,” encourages HERO Foundation marketing director Michelle Chan.

With the convergence of physical might and human-powered speed, the sharpness of the mind and the convenience of high technology, and a new conviction for healthy competition, Arca South is changing the game of how we city-dwellers run our usual race, and perhaps, even our sense of urban living.

“By using technology as a tool to have a better sense of community, that is what we want to show,” shares Stephen Comia.

* * *

The SyncRUNize adventure race will be held on Sept. 19 at the Arca South development in Taguig. To register, visit www.arcasouth.ph or any Chris Sports branches nationwide.