Condo to rise in Midtown Cebu

By Mia A. Aznar
Wednesday, February 2, 2011

BANKING on the accessibility of their project, Cebu Landmasters Inc. and Riasjac Development Corp., owners of Baseline Complex, yesterday signed a contract to develop a new residential condominium in midtown Cebu.

Jose Soberano III, president of Cebu Landmasters, said the joint venture with Riasjac was like a “marriage of sorts” between two homegrown Cebuano companies.

The 16-storey condominium will have 168 units designed by architect Jose Mari Cañizares.

One Baseline Place, a P350-million investment, will be in between the Sideline Garden restaurant and the main Baseline building and will consist of studio and one-bedroom units.

The units will range from 23 to 29 square meters for studio units and 30 to 40 square meters for one-bedroom units. The prices will range from P1.8 million to P3.5 million.

Soberano is confident that its location on Juana Osmeña St. is their selling point, pointing out its proximity to schools, churches, hospitals and commercial areas along Gen. Maxilom Ave. and Fuente Osmeña.

Asked if the market for condominium projects will begin to get saturated, Soberano said he does not believe so.

While most condominium projects are in uptown areas, Soberano said their project’s midtown location will offer homeowners the best of uptown and downtown.

He said it will be easy to go to the southern and northern parts of Cebu.

They are targeting professionals and businessmen, those from out of town who have children studying in the city and are in need of a second home and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who want to buy homes in the city.

Soberano said Cebu Landmasters and the Cañizares family, who owns Baseline Complex, got into the initial planning and negotiations three months ago.

As Cebu Landmasters was in search of a location for a second condominium project to follow their Asia Premier project, Riasjac was also in search of a developer to help them with the redevelopment of Baseline Complex.

Cañizares said they adopted a tropical Filipino design for the building, with three levels of podium parking and a basement parking lot, retail area, swimming pool, mail room, function room, fitness gym, drying area and roof deck.

One Baseline Place is scheduled to break ground in May, while Cañizares expects the project to be completed in two years.

The Baseline Complex is nearly 1.4 hectares. Cañizares said that other plans are still in the drawing board but that they have existing amenities such as a gym, tennis courts and restaurant.

Riasjac also owns One Mango Ave., a commercial complex along Gen. Maxilom Ave.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on February 03, 2011.