ALI to launch “pocket development” in QC
Anna Ma. Margarita Dy, vice president and head of ALI’s Strategic Landbank Management Group, said in a recent press briefing that ALI will launch an 11-hectare mixed-use development which will be situated along the intersection of EDSA and the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX).
The development will have residential, office towers, and mall components, as well as a hospital that will become the flagship hospital north of Metro Manila of QualiMed, a partnership between ALI and the Mercado group. Another QualiMed hospital in the south is also planned to be built in Ayala Land’s Arca South township project in Taguig.
The Balintawak development will be situated at the tail end of the San Miguel Group and Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp.’s P26.5-billion Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 connector road.
The ongoing connector road project is a six-lane, 14.8-kilometer expressway from Buendia Avenue in Makati City to Balintawak—where the ALI development will rise—connecting the South Luzon Expressway to NLEX. The road project will be completed by 2017.
Dy said the development will be launched separately sometime this year and completion is expected three to four years from now. This will be the first project that the company will launch this year.
She said the residential component of the 11-hectare complex “will start with Avida and Alveo toward the latter part of the year” as more brands follow. The residential units will be completed and turned over “four years from now.” Avida and Alveo are both residential brands of Ayala.
The ALI executive declined to give details for the office towers, but said the mall and the 250-bed QualiMed hospital will both be “up in three years” from the start of construction.
“We’ll provide more details later in the launch. We’re still finalizing [the plan],” Dy said.
Other than the Balintawak development, ALI is also set to launch another integrated residential, retail, office and hotels estate in Bacolod Capitol, also sometime this year.
These projects will follow the four township complexes that ALI launched last year—Alviera in Pampanga, Altaraza in Bulacan, Arca South in Taguig, and Atria Park District in Iloilo, amounting to more than 1,200 hectares of developable land.
For 2015, ALI is set to launch between P100-billion and P120-billion worth of projects to keep pace with its 20-percent annual growth target.
For its offices portfolio, ALI will be launching about 300,000 square meters (sqm) in gross leasing area (GLA), with 106,000 sqm set to be completed within the year. Office towers for 2015 will rise in Alabang Town Center, Cebu, two in Bonifacio Global City (BGC), and one at the UP Technohub.
In terms of mall developments, some 147,000 sqm GLA will be up for completion within the year out of the 197,000 sqm undergoing construction this year. These will consist of seven malls in Nuvali in Sta. Rosa Laguna; BGC; UP; Ortigas; Tagaytay; Circuit, Makati; and Legaspi, Albay. Each mall will range in size from 15,000 sqm to 40,000 sqm.
For hotels, ALI is set to complete a 153-room hotel in Iloilo this year. ALI executives said a total of 2,000 hotel keys will be under construction until 2019.
ALI’s 2014 performance exceeded expectations as its net income went up 26 percent to P14.8 billion from P11.7 billion a year ago—surpassing its target to grow 20-percent annually.
Revenues likewise increased 17 percent to P95.2 billion from the previous year.
The company is on track with its 2020 Vision, which involves growing its profits by 20 percent yearly to P40 billion by 2020 from P11.7 billion in 2013.
To fund the projects this year in line with its 2020 Vision, ALI Chief Financial Officer Jaime Ysmael said the company raised its capital expenditure to P100 billion. Funding will be sourced to its P16-billion share placement last month, internally generated cash, and “P15 billion to P20 billion” from various debt-raising initiatives.
ALI is involved in property development, commercial leasing, hotels and resorts, construction and property management of the Ayala Group. It is the property unit of conglomerate Ayala Corp., which also has other units including Manila Water Co. Inc., Globe Telecom Inc., Integrated Microelectronics Inc., Bank of the Philippine Islands and LiveIt Investments, among others.
Source: Manila Times
