Low-rise, high price
Low-rise, high price
Posted: 0:39 AM | Mar. 24, 2004
Victor Agustin
Inquirer News Service
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THE AYALAS are crossing the EDSA highway and shifting the fulcrum of its high-end residential development to the Fort Bonifacio Global City prime development area with a low-rise complex of condominiums with prices per square meter is at par with that of One Roxas Triangle, its most expensive high-rise condo by far.
The indicative unit pricing for the top-tier “District 1″ of the Serendra, as the 11.6-hectare complex in Fort Bonifacio is called, hovers around 100,000 pesos a square meter, value-added tax included.
Unlike One Roxas Triangle units whose floor areas range from 286 to 528 square meters, Serendra District 1 offers more affordable sizes: from 68-square-meter, one-bedroom units (6.9 million pesos, with one parking slot) to 187-square-meter, three-bedroom units (18.1 million pesos, with two parking slots).
District 2 offers smaller chunks from 40-square-meter studios (3.4 million pesos, no parking slot) to 138-square-meter average, three-bedroom affairs (14.8 million pesos, with two parking slots).
A limited number of parking slots, all underground, are available for sale, at 600,000 to 650,000 pesos per slot.
Both District 1 and 2 buildings would have a European-”bahay na bato” [stone house] look, with a number of units having their own balconies. There are a host of smaller, shorter buildings within the complex, but in no case would the structures be higher than nine floors.
To further visualize the project, the twin main buildings look like two fat “W” letters placed base to base, with ground-and second-level food and retail shops occupying a rotunda-like intersection and lining up the promenade that separates the two districts.
The single-level residential units are juxtaposed on each side of the building, one row looking out the street/promenade and one row looking out an indoor park. A corridor on each floor runs down like a spine throughout the entire length of each building.
The corridors feature air wells every so often that provide a natural break and ventilation, which should bring down electricity cost for the residents association.
The main attraction of Serendra is that two-thirds of the land area is devoted to greenery/open space, with the outer perimeter ringed by hedges and pocket gardens to provide buffer space from the sidewalks.
The downside of this green space and bigger land area — District 1 and 2 occupy 3.8 hectares of the 11.6-hectare Serendra complex — is that the unit owners’ association would have to hire more guards to provide perimeter and indoor security, employ more gardeners and consume more water, in addition to the high-maintenance swimming pools, to live up to standards.
Water rates in Fort Bonifacio, incidentally, are almost twice as high as what consumers pay in the Ayala water concession area.
No numbers have been crunched yet, but the monthly association dues should not exceed the levels at the high-end Salcedo Village condos that Ayala has built in the Makati business district, according to a briefing held for analysts Monday.
Serendra still has yet to receive its sales license, but Ayala has already constructed a sales office, complete with fully furnished model units, at the site.
Heard through the grapevine
TYCOON Henry Sy has signed up IMax to become its flagship theatre in the Mall of Asia, the country’s and arguably the region’s largest shopping complex, in the Manila Bay reclamation area.
IMax originally had its heart on Fort Bonifacio, and had even made a modest down payment to developer Metro Pacific Corp., until the currency crisis and the resultant debt woes prompted Metro Pacific not only to scuttle the project but sell out of Fort Bonifacio as well.
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