City to bid out 30 hectares of South Road Properties
The Freeman
Friday, June 1, 2007
There is no stopping the city government from selling the 254-hectare South Road Properties.
Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday revealed that the city government will soon bid out 30 hectares of the SRP located in the Mambaling area.
He said the 30-hectare area that is now being negotiated with investors is already cleared and presently undergoing cosmetic jobs like concreting of the fence that will separate it from Mambaling so that the investors at the SRP will not see the urban poor.
The mayor said a certain investor has offered to buy the lot for P2 billion but while the city has not decided on it, the lot is still open for other offers. He said that the lot will be sold at minimum of P7,000 to P13,000 per square meter or around P2 billion to P4 billion for all 30 hectares.
“Hopefully whoever will buy it would do something with it,” Osmeña said.
The mayor said that yesterday morning, he received a phone call from Bigfoot Entertainment asking if they could have one more hectare for their studio expansion.
Last May 8, Bigfoot Entertainment signaled the start of their multi-million expansion project at the controversial facility through a groundbreaking ceremony.
Bigfoot’s two-hectare property at the SRP will house state-of-the-art filmmaking facilities that will be at par with the famous film outfits such as Universal Studios and Warner Brothers Studios.
“Bigfoot is very keen on building their studio beside Pond A. They leased two hectares, now they want the third hectare immediately. They want to expand it, no problem,” the mayor said.
Osmeña also said that he was supposed to meet with Bigfoot and Filinvest last night but the meeting was rescheduled to next week. He added that there is possibility for joint venture between Filinvest, Bigfoot and the city government for the construction of a high-end commercial multi-purpose complex.
At present, he said that Filinvest has hired architects to do the presentation of their plan.
“We are monitoring the real estate market, which is very good at this time. If real estate market is good, even if you are a lousy developer you will make money. But the real estate market now is hot, this is very timely to sell SRP,” he said.
By selling the property, he explained that the city will earn money aside from tax collections and its share of the Internal Revenue Allotment.
The city needs to raise P500 million this year to take care of the city’s debts for its loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation for the funds it spent in developing the SRP.
The city government has still a remaining balance of P6.3 billion in its loan with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation as part of the 12.292 billion yen it borrowed from the bank to build the SRP payable in 20 years
Despite the recent issues that are hounding his multi-billion pet project, the mayor said that he does not foresee SRP to be a problem at all. Likewise, he wants the people to know every development in the property because the owners of the property are the people of Cebu.
He said that the only problem with SRP is that it is very risky because it so big.
“Price is not everything, especially for us. SRP is 25 years to pay. It’s not to pay it in Christmas time. We have to give away 10 hectares, 20 hectares a year at 80 percent discount...we can pay that P500 million a year,” Osmeña said.
He said that aside from the revenues that the SRP will provide the city, it would also create jobs, improve economy, and make Cebu City competitive with other cities. “If the Japanese Embassy comes to Cebu, I’ll not charge them, I’ll even pay them,” he said, adding that SRP would bring lots of benefits to Cebu. — Wenna A. Berondo/BRP