DoubleDragon acquires Iloilo property for 2nd ind’l hub dev’t

DoubleDragon Properties Corp., the listed property and mall developer of Mang Inasal founder Edgar “Injap” Sia II and Jollibee Foods Corp. chairman Tony Tan Caktiong, has acquired a second site for its planned development of eight industrial hubs across the country by 2020.

DoubleDragon yesterday said subsidiary CentralHub Industrial Centers Inc. acquired a 3.9-hectare property in Iloilo, located along Iloilo R3 Road, which will host the firm’s second CentralHub complex following CentralHub-Tarlac that is now under construction.

“We believe the industrial leasing segment presents significant growth opportunities for DoubleDragon as the current market supply is very traditional and fragmented,” said Sia, DoubleDragon chairman.

CentralHub-Iloilo will have a capacity of 22,000 square meters of leasable space once fully developed, while CentralHub-Tarlac sits on a 6.2 hectare lot with 32,000 square meters of leasable industrial space.

DoubleDragon envisions CentralHub to become the leading provider of industrial warehouses in the Philippines through the development of its first eight CentralHub sites by 2020 which are targeted to have a total land area of 100 hectares.

The eight CentralHub industrial hubs will have two sites each in North Luzon, South Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

DoubleDragon said each CentralHub site would contain modern standardized multi-use warehouses suited for commissaries, cold storage, light manufacturing, and logistics distributon centers.

“As a new player in an already mature real estate industry which has been dominated by large established players for decades, we are focused in segments within the real estate space where we still have an opportunity to organically dominate, such as industrial leasing, provincial community mall leasing and hospitality,” Sia said.

“Other than the e-commerce businesses that will soon require facilities such as CentralHub, there are also a lot of synergies within our ecosystem since both our affiliates and the tenants of our CityMalls are the natural users of warehouse facilities as they continue to expand their business to capture the growing consumer base of the Philippines,” he added.

DoubleDragon recently revised its 2020 vision upwards, from accumulating one million square meters of leasable space to 1.2 million square meters, in line with its goal of having 90 percent of its revenues from diversified recurring revenue sources backed by a string of appreciating hard assets.

The new 2020 vision now includes the additional 100,000 square meters of leasable space from the industrial leasing segment through CentralHub and another 100,000 square meters from its hospitality arm through its rollout of Hotel101 and JinJiang Inn properties nationwide.

This is in addition to the 700,000 square meters of retail leasing operations through CityMalls and 300,000 square meters of office leasing operations from DD Meridian Park and Jollibee Tower.

DoubleDragon said the increase in leasable space is expected to enhance the company’s 2020 net income target from P4.8 billion to P5.5 billion.