Arthaland targets to quintuple projects in 5 years

ARTHALAND Corp. is acquiring more land in Metro Manila and other key cities, as it aims to quintuple the number of completed projects under its portfolio in the next five years.

Arthaland Executive Vice President for Business Development Christopher G. Narciso noted the company ended 2017 with two completed projects, namely the twotower Arya Residences and its flagship office project Arthaland Century Pacific Tower (ACPT), both located in Bonifacio Global City (BGC).

The listed property developer is currently developing an office project in Cebu. The 39-storey Cebu Exchange Tower offers 83,100 square meters (sq.m.) of office space plus 3,900 sq.m. of retail space.

“We want to expand development footprint via residential and office buildings in a very boutique way. Coming out from 2017, we had Arya and ACPT. We want to expand that five times in the next five years, and increase the number of square meters we’ll develop,” Mr. Narciso told reporters during a media round table in Taguig City on Tuesday.

Arthaland has several projects in the pipeline to achieve this target, including a commercial office project in Arca South in Taguig. It also plans to develop several condominium projects within the Makati Central Business District and BGC. Mr. Narciso said they are still acquiring the properties to be used for the projects.

“It’s all in the works right now. It’s hard to say exactly how many (condominiums), because we’re evaluating and working on several properties... We’re looking at acquiring new properties there,” Mr. Narciso said.

Arthaland has also lined up an apartment/ condominium type residential project in Binan, Laguna. This will consist of around 300 rooms with an average size of at least 24 sq.m. Mr. Narciso said the rooms can accommodate up to four people.

“Our team actually visited different university towns in the United States to get inspiration for the project... It’s a good mix of the different university towns there, but we localized it to suit local culture, place, and weather,” Mr. Narciso said.

The company is likewise evaluating other areas outside Metro Manila, as it targets to expand beyond Luzon and the Visayas.

Mr. Narciso noted Arthaland has been “very deliberate” with the pace of its expansion in previous years, saying this allows them to pay attention to more detail compared with other largescale property developers.

“That was very much deliberate, given that the way that Arthaland wants to develop is to do it as a boutique developer... so you won’t see us doing five projects a year. We will still be very deliberate in having a right number of projects even as we expand,” he explained.

Arthaland grew its net income attributable to the parent by 535% in the first six months of 2018 to P34.6 million, amid slower gross revenues of P210.78 million during the period.

Shares in Arthaland slipped by a centavo or 1.37% to close at 72 centavos each at the stock exchange on Tuesday.