HANKYU, PA PROPERTIES EMBARK ON HOUSING VENTURE

Japanese firm Hankyu Realty Co. Ltd. has teamed up with PA Alvarez Properties and Development Corp. (PA Properties) to develop an economic housing project in Cavite with an initial capital outlay of more than P600 million.

This marks the first commercial venture of the Osaka-based company in the Philippines.

Top company officials representing both parties signed a joint venture agreement on Wednesday evening.

The project involves the development of a 37-hectare land in Dasmariñas City, Cavite into a residential area with 868 units of detached houses and townhouses that would be built in about five years. Construction is scheduled to begin in October this year.

Hankyu Realty, which serves as the residential development business arm of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Group, brings to the table its decades of experience in putting up around 60, 000 units of real estate houses and 20, 000 condominium units in Japan.

According to PA Properties president Jonathan G. Lu, the joint venture would likely be named PA Properties Hankyu 1.

In the briefing that followed the signing ceremony, Lu said the first phase of the project, which will cover 11 hectares of the property, would cost P656 million.

“The initial capitalization of this project is P656 million. We don’t have yet of the exact figure on how much would be the total project cost. We are still computing the total project cost,” he said, noting that the Japanese firm would shoulder 40 percent of the cost for phase one.

Lu said that Hankyu has already expressed interest in the second and third phases of the project. However, the finer details of their arrangement are still being discussed.

According to Lu, the project would help address the more than five million housing backlog in the country, noting that Hankyu has the “technology that can help us technically in improving the quality of housing units that we are presently doing in the Philippines.”