Fort Bonifacio: A new suburb with global ambition

By Roel Landingin
Published: June 16 2007

There are few visible signs that one of Manila's hottest property markets used to be part of a military camp where Ferdinand Marcos detained hundreds of his critics, including Ninoy Aquino, whose 1983 assassination eventually led to the late Philippine dictator's ousting.

But Narciso Abaya, the former armed forces chief of staff, can document the transition. "The military intelligence training school used to be over there," he says, pointing from his first-floor office to a block of low-lying buildings occupied by a McDonald's, a UCC Coffee and other fast-food outlets and shops. A few metres further down is a shopping mall built over a cave that used to house the army museum, he adds.

Abaya is now in charge of converting about half a dozen military bases into prime property for the Philippine government to sell or lease and this is one of the most important - a 240-hectare planned community called Bonifacio Global City.

Until 12 years ago it was Fort Bonifacio, the army headquarters, but the detention centre, barracks, military offices and training fields are long gone. In their place, scores of residential towers, office buildings, retail establishments and half a dozen schools are rising in rapid succession, turning the site into an extension of the financial district in Makati city about 3km away.

In the past six years private developers have built seven high-rise apartment blocks that include some of the most expensive condominium units in Manila. Strong demand, mainly from Filipinos who have built fortunes working overseas, has spurred construction of at least 20 more to be completed by 2010.

The residences look over the American Battle Memorial to soldiers who died in the second world war or the Manila Golf Club, two of the few big patches of greenery that remain in the dense capital of 12m people. Indeed, an unobstructed view of the golf course built in 1901 is often used as a sales pitch by developers and one condominium building is named Fairways Tower.

"I checked out the view from my future unit by climbing into an elevator that went all the way to the top when this building was still under construction," says Josie Lichauco, a retired lawyer and one-time transportation secretary who lives in a penthouse unit at the Essensa East Forbes development.

From her living room window one can look out to the horizon towards the eastern reaches of Manila and see the blue-green waters of a lake and the Sierra Madre mountain range, which shields the city from typhoons coming from the Pacific Ocean.

It's not just the views that attract residents to Fort Bonifacio, however. Many expatriates have bought or leased units so their children can be near three international schools.

For others, the neighbourhood's size, layout and resulting environment are the big lures. It has wide roads and pavements, open spaces and parks and slightly better air quality than the rest of Manila. "You have people who jog in the mornings or at night," says Carl Ottiger, a Swiss who works as an investment adviser in Manila. Dog owners like it because their pets get a chance to run around. "Of course, people who have dogs normally don't walk them because they have cooks, maids and nannies to do that," he adds.

The impetus for the government's decision to privatise the property in 1995 was a desire to create a well- designed urban centre that would avoid many of the planning mistakes that turned Manila's business districts into traffic-choked, congested and polluted city blocks. Planners regulate how much floor space can be built from each square metre of land. Electrical wires and fibre optic cables for television and broadband are all underground so no unsightly poles with hanging wires spoil the view. Apartment units are connected to gas pipes that allow residents to cook or power their air conditioning units using liquefied petroleum gas, which is cheaper than electricity. Each building is equipped with enough back-up power to ensure the cooling system works even during city-wide electricity outages. There is also a big holding pond for rainwater to guard against flooding even in the worst of the 20 or so tropical storms that hit the Philippines every year.

Fort Bonifacio is also well connected, accessible through six gateways that lead to Manila's two main thoroughfares and to the airport. A new fly-over connects it to Makati, a faster alternative to the old road link, a narrow but beautiful acacia-lined street through Manila's upmarket subdivisions of Forbes Park and Dasmarinas Village.

Most residents of the neighbourhood still work outside the complex, mainly on Makati's Ayala Avenue, the Philippines' Wall Street, or in the Ortigas business district, about 7km away. But with as many as seven new office towers going up by 2010, adding to a group of three buildings completed in the past six years, more people are expected to live and work in the former army camp in the near future.

Buying in Fort Bonifacio used to be possible for only the very wealthy. The first two residential towers built, the 55-storey Pacific Plaza and Essensa East Forbes, were quite luxurious, with views of Manila's sunrise and sunset, indoor swimming pools heated by solar panels and helipads on their roofs. They also offered units - two- or three-bedroom apartments averaging 300 sq metres with only two or four units per floor - that now sell for close to 30m pesos (£327,471) each. (Larger penthouse units go for more than twice that price.)

But newer buildings offer more affordable options. Serendra, a 12-hectare apartment block being built by Ayala Land, the Philippines' biggest property developer, has 36 sq metre studio units that sell for less than 4m pesos, while three-bedroom units with about 200 sq metres go for no more than 20m pesos. Many of the new buyers are semi-retired affluent Filipino-Americans looking for a second home when visiting at least once a year.

Increasingly, the new towers include ground-level retail space, a departure from the more private and exclusive atmosphere in the older buildings. Shops, restaurants and fast-food chains will occupy 6 per cent (9,500 sq metres) of Serendra's total gross floor area, making it equivalent to a small strip mall. And these areas are open long before the residential units are ready for occupancy, drawing in crowds of potential buyers.

Fort Bonifacio's original residents sometimes fret about what they feel is indiscriminate development in the area. "You could see the wide variety of architectural designs and there's very little consistency," complains one. "You have a high-density shopping mall just beside a supposedly high-end condominium."

But newcomers seem to enjoy how close their units are to the shops and restaurants. "I enjoy going out a lot and living in Fort Bonifacio makes that very easy to do because the restaurants and bars are just a few minutes away," says Greg Torres, a Filipino who shuttles frequently between Manila and Los Angeles, California, where he works as a systems analyst.

Real estate broker Cynthia Palad-Yap observes that recent buyers, especially Filipinos who have worked and lived in other countries for decades, appear to be breaking conventional notions about class-based segmentation of the market. "Many of my Filipino-American clients can afford to buy expensive condominium units but prefer to visit the shopping mall for bargain finds rather than the uppity stores selling US labels," she says. "Perhaps living abroad makes one less conscious of class status."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Friends!

This article entitled "Fort Bonifacio: A new suburb with global ambition" written by Roel Landingin appeared in the Financial Times, an international newspaper which focuses on business and economic news. I'm very very honored to be interviewed by Roel about Bonifacio Global City.

Roel, thank you for this very nice article. It really tells us the beauty and the growth opportunities at the BGC. This is a place we Filipinos should be proud of!