Sun.Star
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
THE Cebu City Hall yesterday received a five-year advance payment from Bigfoot Global Solutions, Inc. for its 25-year lease contract on the two-hectare portion of the South Road Properties (SRP).
“We received already a check for over half a million dollars as five years advance payment for the lease. But we have come more or less to agreeing to the sale of at least 16 hectares at P12,000 per square meter and I consider that already discounted,” Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said.
“He (Bigfoot’s Michael Gleissner) is so in a hurry that he cannot wait for this bidding, bidding or COA, COA. The fastest way is a 25-year lease to put up a sound stage,” Osmeña told a news conference yesterday.
Asked how much is the equivalent of the half a million dollars to the current peso-exchange rate, Mayor Osmeña said it’s about P28 million.
He also said Anne Sy of the SM Prime Holdings, Inc. will be coming over to City Hall today to followup on their offer to “make a major development at the SRP.”
The mayor said SM wants the entire 300-hectare SRP. Bigfoot and SM are two of the City’s three “very serious clients to the SRP.”
The other interested client is Filinvest, owned by the Gotianons who, Osmeña said, have “a very strong financial position.” He said the Gotianon couple, who came to look at the site last week, “is already working on the numbers.”
“SM will come tomorrow and they are very serious in acquiring the property, the entire 300 hectares,” the mayor said.
One sale
“I only need one sale. Basically I told them to make their deal now. After that we’ll be choosy so I told them you make your deal kay gutom man mi (because we’re hungry). You can take your deal. After that no more, we will be very picky already,” he added.
He was alluding to the City’s selling a few hectares of the SRP to address the City’s cash flow problem in paying its P6.3 billion loan to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
The mayor said SM has “gone beyond malls.”
“They are now into major developments. They have so much money and about two or three years ago, they approached me.
They wanted to lease a piece of property for a mall. I said no. If it’s cash maybe. But lease for a mall, no because a mall will competes with those of the local businessmen. I’ve learned my lesson that when they built their mall in the North Reclamation Area everybody said it was very nice, a city within a city. When it opened, patay ang Gaw, patay ang Fairmart,” the mayor said.
“The entire Colon, Rositas, tanan hurot, mga movie houses because their customers are the same as the others.
Nakaginansya ba ang atong ekonomiya? Naa pero gamay ra. Nakaginansya because ang mga taga Bohol anhi na magshopping and the construction job. But aside from that there were a lot of dislocation. You look at Colon today. So when SM told me they want to lease to build a mall I said no not interested. It’s a low, low, low priority,” he added.
But Osmeña said that was about two or three years ago.
“Now they came back. They want to do a major development. They said they want the whole thing. They’re coming back tomorrow. Ann Sy is the one in-charge of the property development,” he added.
Movie studio
Meanwhile, Bigfoot’s Gleissner is already leasing 20,000 square meters of the SRP in the next 25 years effective tomorrow.
At US$.40 per square meter a month, the City stands to earn roughly P400,000 a month or nearly P5 million a year from the lease agreement.
Bigfoot will put up a state-of-the-art movie studio at the SRP, similar to the studios in Hollywood and a soundstage that can compete with those in Los Angeles, California, Romania, Italy and Europe.
Aside from buying 16 more hectares in the future, Gleissner is also reportedly interested to put up an international yacht club in the SRP. (GAC)
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