Niche player no more

While this company may still considered a niche player 30 years after it entered the fiercely competitive real estate sector, New San Jose Builders, Inc. (NSJBI) has definitely made its mark.

Its Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, considered the country’s first and only heritage resort by the sea, has become a heritage destination of choice not only among Filipino tourists but even among foreigners.

It is described as an open air museum and heritage park located in Bagac, Bataan which showcases Filipino history and craftsmanship, taking one back to 18th century Philippines.

As described in its website, architectural pieces of a bygone era from different parts of the country were reconstructed brick by brick, plank by plank. “The noble-class mansions, wooden stilt houses, and a grand main building made of stone stand proudly in a village of cobblestone streets. To add up to the ambience, a backdrop of majestic mountains, expansive rice fields, and a running river that flows to the sea are found in the vast property,” it adds.

But Las Casas (Marivent Resort Hotel, Inc.), which is being managed by Asian Grand Legacy Hotels Corp., is also looking forward to being a convention center, through Hotel de Oriente Convention Centre.

Las Casas has about 30 authentic principalia mansions and stone houses which were painstakingly transferred from their original locations from different parts of the country and carefully restored by the resort’s artists. A tour of the heritage houses gives modern Filipinos a glimpse of life during the Spanish era.

One of the heritage houses is Casa Hidalgo which was built in 1867 in Quiapo and designed by Felix Roxas y Arroyo who is the first Filipino to practice architecture in the country. The house was considered the most elegant during the Spanish period. The mansion was were many of the country’s best young artists such as Juan Luna and Felix Hidalgo trained at the houses’s mezzanine. It was also used as the first campus of the UP School of Fine Arts.

But restoring a bygone era is not easy. Nor does it come cheap.

Who would be brave enough to spend all these money for a project which does not make enough returns to be considered a viable business, as one business tycoon pointed out? Of the 400 hectare Las Casas property, only around 20 hectares has been developed. And there are no plans to probably put up condominium buildings, or even a golf course, which could destroy the ambiance of the area.

Only Jose “Jerry” Acuzar, a native of Balanga, Bataan and chairperson of NSJBI has the vision and temerity to maintain such a project, which definitely is not here to make money.

Las Casas currently employs around 300 employees and 200 craftsmen, the latter painstakingly restoring the heritage houses and other structures inside the heritage resort.

Acuzar tells us that when he acquired the property, all he wanted was a vacation place for his family. But then one heritage house came after another, and Las Casas heritage resort was born.

According to him, if there is one legacy that he would like to be remembered for, it would be having transformed the lives of people.

He has this idea of choosing maybe three barangays in Bagac, and then choosing a probably 10 people from each, who he would mold in terms of good manners and right conduct, values formation, with the help of psychologists and other experts. This people could even include drug dependents. And once they are transformed or reformed, they would be given jobs inside Las Casas.

Acuzar believes that human development is far more important than developing real property.

And that is why, he also wants to help the 200 craftsmen working inside Las Casas by providing them other opportunities to make money, say by making souvenirs which can be sold to visitors, or even to other hotels.

Following the relative success of Las Casas, Acuzar is going into other ventures, including buildings schools and hospitals, which he believes are viable anchors for real estate development.

NSJBI, his real estate company, has acquired in 2014 the Manuel L. Quezon University in Quiapo, Manila. According to Acuzar, he went to study in MLQU for a year, but had to leave because the tuition fee was too much for him. So he moved to the Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP) where he studied architecture.

Last year, the MLQU School for Professional Advancement and Continuing Education (SPACE) was launched in Victoria Sports Tower in Quezon City as its new graduate school location. This is also where MLQU’s School of Law has moved from its original location in Quiapo.

But then, probably in five years’ time, the entire MLQU will be transferred to Quezon City. Acuzar revealed that there is this property in front of GMA 7 in Timog which they own and which will be the location of the future MLQU.

Most of the old MLQU site in Quiapo will be transformed into a real estate project, with criminology the only remaining course to be offered there.

Then there are plans to put up satellite schools or branches of MLQU in other parts of the country, including in Balanga, Bataan.

NSJBI is also looking for private hospitals that can be acquired. Acuzar disclosed that there was one hospital in Manila that he was supposed to purchase, until the owners started raising the purchase price.

The company, which currently has Victoria Towers, Victoria Station I, Victoria de Manila I, Isabelle de Valenzuela, Fort Victoria, Victoria de Morato, Victoria de Makati, Victoria Sports Tower Station II, Victoria de Manila 2, Victoria de Malate, and Metro Manila Hills communities, launched this year Victoria Sports signaling its venture into sports club membership.

It will be the country’s biggest sports and social club in a residential setting, with the membership rates ranging from P60,000 to P120,000 per year. No less that just retired MMA star Brandon Vera is said to be the person to run Victoria Sports’ MMA facilities.

And then there is Isabelle de Valenzuela which is the first lifestyle high rise condominium development along McArthur Highway just across our Lady of Fatima, and Ciudad de Victoria in Bocaue, Bulacan.

Victoria and Isabelle are the names of Acuzar’s children.

Acuzar also has plans of putting up a heritage events place in a 6,500 square meter property in Del Monte, Quezon City in what is known there as the Juico property.

NSJBI is also looking to developing property in areas like Cebu and Davao and even possibly listing in the stock market.

Personally, Acuzar prefers vertical than horizontal developments, describing the latter as harder to manage, requiring more permits.

Acuzar has definitely gone a long way, but he still remembers all the names of the small theaters in Balanga where he would go as a young man, his school – the Bataan National School for Arts and Trade (BNSAT), his favorite restaurant in Quiapo.

He is one person who may be developing buildings and homes for the modern Filipino, but seems to cherish the memories of yesteryears when life was simpler, when Filipino traditional values were intact, when life in general was better.

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