Quezon City’s landscape is slowly evolving. Familiar landmarks on the capital city have been demolished or are about to be torn down to give way to modern structures of aggressive real estate companies.
The latest object of redevelopment is the old Delta Theater, also known as Dela Merced Building, at the corner of Quezon Avenue and West Avenue. Dacon Corp., a private company owned by the Consunji family, has acquired the lot where the Delta building stands.
DMCI Homes president Alfredo Austria confirmed to this writer Wednesday that Dacon had bought the piece of property for possible redevelopment by the Consunji-owned property company. The Dela Merced Group informed tenants of the Delta building that they had until the end of 2015 to vacate the premises after the sale of the property to the DMCI Group.
The Delta lot, covering over 6,000 square meters, will likely host condominium towers for mixed-use development. Austria said DMCI Homes would likely develop the property into a residential and commercial building, with offices for rent, a deviation from its traditional condo residential projects.
Dacon, a major shareholder of parent DMCI Holdings Inc., will contribute the Delta lot as equity, with DMCI Homes through DMCI Project Developers Inc. acting as the developer of the property.
Austria said the Consunji Group would start offering mixed-use property projects, presumably to cash in on the burgeoning business process outsourcing industry in the Philippines.
The acquisition of the Delta building followed the move of the SM Group a few years ago when SM Development Corp., the property arm of retail tycoon Henry Sy, bought the former 86-room Danarra Hotel and Resort from the family of hotel president and general manager Mario Sarmiento for about P350 million.
SM Development tore down and built a high-rise office condominium on the area to take advantage of its strategic location. Danarra Hotel, once a favorite hangout in the 70’s and 80’s, had sat on a one-hectare property in Quezon City’s South Triangle, also called Timog Triangle.
The Danarra Hotel purchase also followed the acquisition of three other properties worth close to P2 billion several years ago. SMDC bought a one-hectare property near Welcome Rotonda in Quezon City, where it built two residential condominiums under the Sun Residences brand. The Welcome Rotonda property was the site of a popular girlie bar in the 70’s.
Bullish on property
The DMCI Group is upbeat on the property sector, lining up P50 billion worth of projects in 2016. Austria said the company, through DMCI Project Developers Inc., would offer 14,000 residential units in the market, including the mass housing sector.
The mass housing thrust is another first for DMCI. Dacon has served as the group’s land bank holder for future project development. Dacon, for one, owns a huge property in Bataan province that could be transformed into a house and lot development. Another landholding is a 2.9-hectare lot in Davao City.
DMCI Homes earlier projected net income reaching P3.6 billion in 2015, up 11 percent from P3.2 billion in 2014, with the launching of five new residential projects offering more than 3,000 units..
The company expects the launching of more housing units next year to boost the reservation sales to P23 billion in 2016 from the P20-billion target this year.
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