Lucio Tan’s Eton ventures into hotels

Taipan Lucio Tan’s Eton Properties Philippines Inc. will venture into the hotel business.

In a recent interview, Eton Properties chief operating officer Josefino Lucas said the company would launch two hotel projects.

One will be in Pasay City near the Entertainment City, while the other will be in Quezon City within the company’s sprawling 12-hectare Centris development.

In Pasay, Eton plans to build a 160room hotel within a two-tower development on a 4,000 square meter property across Heritage Hotel.

The other tower will be a mixed-use project on a property acquired by the company from Philippine National Bank.

Eton expects to spend about P2 billion for the mixed-use development.

The company’s planned hotel in Pasay will not compete with the five-star hotels in the 100-hectare Entertainment City such as Enrique Razon’s Solaire Resort & Casino and Melco Crown’s City of Dreams.

“We can’t compete with the bigger ones in Entertainment City so it will be something like Midas or Jen Hotel,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Quezon City, Eton is building a 200-room three-star hotel, which will also be under its own brand. This will cater to BPO workers and other commuters who live in Bulacan or farther north.

Developing its own hotel brand will enable the company to boost its recurring income.

At present, Eton Properties operates a high-end 368-room serviced apartment in Makati City called Mini Suites.

Eton Properties is also expanding its BPO portfolio in Centris with Centris Cyberpod, a 25-story tower that offers an ideal working space for BPO professionals.

The tower will be accessible to various transport systems and will also have sufficient elevators, ample parking space, 100 percent emergency back-up power and full security system.

Eton’s other projects include a BPO office space in Ortigas with a net leasable area of 16,000 sqm and the Courtyard in Eton City in Laguna which will have 33,000 sqm of leasable space.

The company aims to double its leasing assets to 300,000 square meters by 2020 from 147,000 sqm as of October last year.