DAVAO’S RISING BEACH ‘PARADISE’

Mindanao-based company ups ante in property development in the South

By Manuel T. Cayon

DAVAO CITY—When one thinks of an away from the urban center, one would wish to venture into thinking that it could be a shoreline property, a vacation home, and a

Th is is the project called Samal Shores Residenza, the biggest yet to emerge from the most exciting development in this island garden city, which is soon to get connected to the mainland with the construction of a P23.039-billion bridge by 2027.

More than a residential project, the 150-hectare property development boasts of two five-star hotel edifices jutting out from the greeneries to get the best view of the shoreline of Samal and the skyline of Davao City, and a clubhouse perched atop the property’s highest point, at 104 meters above sea level, to offer a breathtaking view of Mount Apo, the country’s highest peak.

Opening salvo

“THIS will be our first salvo to super high-end development in the country,” said Celedonio A. Pile Jr., vice president for business development and special projects of Ulticon Builders Inc., the parent company of Tri-Gon Realty Corp. which is undertaking the project planning and construction.

Its 170-room hotel buildings have a convention facility for 1,200 guests and two helipads at the top. The first wing was opened in July, and has since turned out booked sales all throughout, despite occupancy jitters among hotels across Asia and the world in the postCovid-19 pandemic era. The second wing would open in October on an optimistic foresight that the market is more than Davao City.

Celedonio A. Pile Jr., vice president for business development and special projects of Ulticon Builders Inc. THE property’s beach line of the project.

It’s Mindanao market, and for those in Luzon, what comes to mind is putting up a home here,” he said.

With the hotel architecture of long columns conspicuously standing wide abreast of spacious lobby, the owners of the property would introduce the buyers into the residenza villas “of the quality and lifestyle that they are buying into the property.”

This 11-digit-budget property development started almost a decade early, with the concept anchored on the dream of a connector bridge. The bridge had long been talked and hyped about to link the island with the most proximate Davao City, and owners soon gathered the best architects and planners of the industry, including a team of Igorot artisans from the Luzon uplands to install the stone brick walls that are synonymous with the centuries-old wall craftsmanship of the rice terraces in the Mountain Province.

Villas THE Samal Shores Residenza is the principal and flagship project allotted with 31 hectares of rolling terrain from near the beachfront going into the interior. Each lot has an average cut of 250 square meters and a small portion of land at the higher point has been dedicated to the more luxurious living space of 750 square meters. This portion of land offers a breezy view of the three-kilometer channel between the island and Davao City.

Some 8,000 square meters have been allotted to open space, allotted generously to the entire property, and future development would include a shopping mall, a medical facility and a police station. A golf course has been presented as another future development item.

Part of the touch of class of the property development is ascribed to the family of the property developer, who is into art, painting and landscape galore. “You marry this with good planners and you got the execution of the idea of the highest standard of what we can think about. One knows how ‘nice is nice’ but when you work together with a good planner who is good in these things, you got to magnify the ideas of the principal. That’s what we did here,” Pile said.