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PUT it
down perhaps to the Year of the Rat. Things are
certainly picking up for the Tan Yu Group and its
Philippine head, Elena Tanyu Coyiuto.
For one,
the Group’s joint ventures with the
Burgundy guys are on schedule (read:
Burgundy
is finishing the real-estate projects started by the Tan
Yu Group).
For
another, property value in the Group’s Marina project
along Manila’s reclamation area is expected to perk up
since a master plan for the adjacent 7.5-hectare
property owned by Eton Properties Phils. Inc. is
currently being undertaken. As everybody knows, the Eton
property used to be part of Marina until all three lots
were foreclosed by banks majority owned by Lucio Tan,
who also happens to be the majority owner of Eton.
Oh yes,
Tan Yu Group’s
Fuga Island
off Batanes has been sold off. The talk is it will be
developed into a casino-focused theme park.
Did you
know 1:
Parañaque is now offering a five-year holiday on
real-estate taxes for investments worth at least P400
million, inclusive of land and equipment.
Right
now, that basically refers to future investors in Pagcor
City.
Did you
know 2:
Included
in the current wish list of Science and Technology
Secretary Estrella Alabastro is the launch of the
country’s own satellite to improve weather forecasting.
Mind you, even such a small satellite will set back the
country by P1 billion and must be replaced every three
years.
This
year, the Department of Science and Technology has a
research and development budget of P3 billion, inclusive
of grants in aid.
Did you
know 3:
Real-estate companies with projects in
Makati
(read: this includes The Fort) are reeling from
cancellations and downgrades from Filipino-American
buyers hit by the subprime-mortgage crisis in the United
States. The talk is cancellations in Makati projects
are as high as 50 percent, significantly higher than the
industry standard of 20 percent.
One
immediate result? There aren’t any US road shows being
planned by real-estate companies this first half of the
year.
The
University Belt is still talking about the launch last
week of the University of the East’s private garden for
students and faculty. As everybody knows, the garden
used to be an entire building, which the university
recently purchased and then demolished to give way to
lush greenery.
Perhaps
in keeping with a Chinese New Year motif, the park’s
fully-grown trees were strung with ang pao,
filled with real-paper money, of course.
And, at
a given signal, everybody, including teachers, scrambled
for those red envelopes.
Very
thoughtfully, the organizers led by president Panfilo
Domingo made sure there were enough envelopes to make
almost everybody happy. And yes, there were no envelopes
in the higher branches. |
