Filinvest lines up more projects

Aside from its recent P4 billion ultra high-end resort village Seascapes, the Filinvest Group has lined up several projects in Cebu for the next few years.

"We have a couple more of projects [in Cebu] in the pipeline," said Joji Gotianun Yap, president of Filinvest Development Corporation.

The Gotianuns whose family roots originated from Cebu, is now coming back to introduce more residential, or may it be commercial developments, as Cebu is getting more attractive for these kinds of investments.

In an interview with Yap, she said the family has decided to convert its ancestral home located in Lahug, right across the Cebu Business Park (CBP), into a commercial development.

"It is quite a big property, we are still conceptualizing what is the right project for that area," she said.

The family's 4,000 square-meter ancestral property located beside East West Bank in Archbishop Reyes Avenue branch, may be transformed into a high-rise, mixed-use building, not necessarily a condominium, she said.

"Our core competency is into residential," she said although, the company has several diversified projects like banking (East West Bank) , shopping centers, central business districts, high-rise offices, and condominiums, recreational farms, leisure clubs, industrial estates and an information technology park.

In Cebu, Filinvest Group has introduced several residential projects like the Corona del Mar in Talisay City, Aldea del Sol (affordable housing), and Mactan Tropics in Lapu-Lapu City, Yap said the company is prioritizing investments in the residential projects in Cebu, over commercial or shopping mall development.

Earlier, Cebu Investment and Promotion Center (CIPC) managing director Joel Mari S. Yu announced that Filinvest has expressed interest to develop a commercial project at inside the 300-hectare South Road Properties (SRP).

Yap said the SRP plan is not yet final, but is part of the company's considerations in pouring more projects for Cebu. "Not necessarily a mall," she said, adding that it could be a commercial office building development.

"We are looking at different opportunities around, nothing is definite yet," she stressed.

The company's newest project in Cebu, introduced by the Filinvest Leisure group, the 12-hectare Seascape project is the biggest (in terms of investment) project so far being built by the company in the country.

She added that the company has recognized the tourism boom in Cebu, and she believes that this is the right time to invest this kind of project in Cebu.

Filinvest chairman Andrew Gotianun Sr., who has a Cebuano lineage, has hand-picked the location for this biggest and most expensive project ventured by the leisure group, located in Barangay Dapdap, in Mactan Island.

Filinvest Development Corporation is one of the largest developers in the Philippines. It developed about 1,500 hectares of land in the last four decades.