HOW would you like to have a vacation home where you can relax and even earn from while you’re away?
Or you may want to own a condo unit and have the experience of living in a fully operating hotel? You have your concierge, restaurant, business center, gym, entertainment venue, your hotel lobby, front desk, security, room service, swimming pool and spa and all other five-star amenities, all for your convenience.
Popular in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, hotel-condos have started mushrooming in the Philippines in recent years. A condo hotel or “condotel,” as it is widely known today, is a relatively new concept in vacation home ownership. It is a condominium project that is operated as a commercial hotel even though the units are individually owned.
According to Ronald M. Lim, president and CEO of Pacific Concord Properties Inc. (PCPI), owner and developer of the Lancaster Brand of Condotels in the Philippines, condotel can be a very good investment for people who work abroad and occasionally come home for a monthlong vacation or less.
Unlike simple condominiums—which owners can use as they please—hotel-condo units are both investment and residential units. One advantage is that owners can invest in real estate while having access to hotel amenities. As the units are rented out, the owners receive a portion of the income.
Lancaster Hotel, according to Lim, manages the units of Lancaster owners who agreed to surrender their units for fit out and design following company standards. “All condotel rooms are similar,” Lim said. “You think you are in a hotel, but actually the units have different owners, but with the same fit out.”
Envisioning the future
Acknowledged as the father of the condotel concept in the Philippines, Lim said that there is no way but up in today’s demand for residential and office spaces. With the demand for urban living, everything is going vertical, making every spaces up available.
A visionary entrepreneur-developer, Lim thought of the condotel business back then when he was managing apartelles and condominiums during his younger years. He observed that there was a great demand for transient spaces. Tourists who needed to stay in the country for a longer span of time could not find a comfortable place apart from hotels.
Could those hotels have cheaper alternatives? How about the vacant condominium units? Can they be maximized by transforming them into a hotel room? He was asking these questions to himself and promised to apply this concept in his own properties.
The condotel concept was formally introduced in the Philippines through Lim’s first development, the Lancaster Hotel. Constructed in 2003, the three-star development was a hit both with the middle market, as well as for the high-end market, which has learned to become more budget-conscious. It was then followed by another Lancaster Hotel in Cebu. Both properties were launched in 2007.
Living up to his dream, all units at Lancaster Suites have kitchen facilities. The standard unit price provides for the suite to be semi-finished but not fully furnished. Included in the price are interior finishing’s such as tiled and semi-fitted bathrooms; bedrooms, semi-fitted living and dining area with simulated wood-plank floorings; and lower kitchen cabinets/work tops installed. Walls and ceilings are painted cement finish.
Big dreamer
Lim started investing in real estate as a student at Saint Jude College and later at De La Salle University where he graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. In the early 1990s he worked as a manager in apartelles and other properties. After which he tried his luck and almost settled down for good in the US. But he wanted to pursue the dream he had in his younger days and decided to come home.
He established his own company, the PCPI with an Australian investor in Japan in 2001 amid the questions of critics about his credentials in putting up high rises.
But he was determined to win. Lim did not want to lose. The opening of the two properties in Cebu and Manila in 2007 served as proof of his determination to succeed.
Lim said his current project is the Atrium, the second tower of Lancaster Manila, his first environmental project. He said the Atrium is set to mark a new chapter in real- estate industry of the country as the first high-rise condotel in the Philippines that uses green technology by using bricks. He said he also made sure the tower gets plenty of natural light by replacing the firewall with windows and glass. This way, sunlight can penetrate the building easily, thus maximizing the electricity for light bulbs.
The Lancaster Atrium development has 600 hotel-condo rooms and suites, a spa, swimming pool, business center, its own mini mall, shops and convenience stores and several restaurants.
The 42-story project, located atop a common podium with Lancaster Suites Tower I, is only one block from the Ortigas Center, Shangri-La Mall, Edsa Plaza Hotel and SM Megal Mall, will be fully operational next year.
Like Lancaster Hotel, the Atrium will provide unit owners with premier residential condo units with option of enrolling their units in the Lancaster Condotel Rental Pool.
To complement the Atrium, Lim is targeting the renovation of Lancaster Hotel starting this year for a more modern and luxurious
makeover to catch up with the changes brought about by the booming Philippine economy.
Future projects
Not resting on his laurels, Lim has already his eyes on other projects.
“Right now, I have two upcoming projects, one in Bacolod. The other is in Tagaytay City.”
Lim said, the Bacolod project is an 87-hectare development that has coastal frontage called marina, and inland component called the hacienda. “It will be a mini-township with condotel, house and lots, sports and country club, water park, commercial and retail, business district, marina and board walk. It is a complete development called South of Bacolod.”
He said he hired Budji Layug and Royal Pineda to design South of Bacolod. “There, I will introduce my newest condotel creation called cabintel. It is like a cabin in the ship. It will have double-deck bed. For a small 18-square-meter room, it can accommodate up to six people or a whole family.”