ROBINSONS Land Corp. (RLC) is planning to develop a dormitory and shared office spaces in the future, seeking to cater to those who cannot afford to buy their own properties.
The Gokongwei-led property developer said it will be building a Go Dorm in Metro Manila in the coming years, targeted toward individuals who are employed in the metro.
“It’s being consistent with our goals is to provide housing for everyone. I guess we have to also accommodate those who cannot buy units but can only afford to rent,” RLC President and Chief Operating Officer Frederick D. Go told reporters after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Ortigas late Wednesday.
The company is also planning to offer shared office spaces, with Mr. Go calling it a “disruptor” in the office leasing sector.
“For office space, the disruptor is shared offices. We are studying and going into that market. There are many shared offices, but not from property developers,” Mr. Go said.
For shared offices, RLC will target businesses who “cannot afford to rent an entire office floor,” such as small to medium enterprises.
The net leasable area (NLA) of RLC’s office segment stood at 405,000 square meters (sq.m.) at the end of 2017. It targets to grow the area by 28% to 518,000 sq.m. this year with the opening of office towers in Exxa, Zeta, and Cyberspace Gamma in Ortigas Center.
The office segment will further grow by 18% to 613,000 sq.m. in terms of NLA by 2019, following the addition of Giga Tower, Cybergate Galleria Cebu, Cybergate Magnolia, and Delta Tower Two.
This year, RLC will start construction on two industrial warehouse facilities in Calamba, Laguna. The first of the two industrial hubs will cover around 33,000 sq.m. of leasable space.
“We can rent it to anybody who needs to take up space… It’s a logistics warehouse, so it can be anything the client wants,” Mr. Go said.
The Laguna facilities will be added to RLC’s first industrial facility in Muntinlupa spanning 32,000 sq.m. of leasable space. The company started turning over the facility in March, and will start contributing to its revenues by June.
For its residential segment, RLC looks to launch two more projects before year-end, including a building within the Robinsons Pioneer complex in Mandaluyong City, and another in Ortigas Center. The company has so far launched three residential towers this year, namely Magnolia Tower D, Radiance Manila Bay South, and Acacia Aurora Escalades.
Mr. Go said the company’s residential business is doing “extremely well,” projecting reservation sales to grow by more than 100% in the second quarter of 2018.
Meanwhile, RLC’s mall segment is set to end the year with 1.508 million sq.m. in gross leasable area, following the addition of Robinsons Place in Ormoc, Pavia, Tuguegarao, and Valencia. By 2019, the opening of Robinsons Place in San Pedro and extension of Robinsons Magnolia and Robinsons Place Antipolo will bring RLC’s GLA to 1.61 million sq.m.
RLC has committed to spend P22.5 billion in capital expenditures this year to support its expansion plans. It already spent P6.817 billion in the first quarter of 2018.
The company’s net income went up 12% to P1.55 billion in the first three months of the year, as revenues climbed 17% to P6.36 billion during the period.
Shares in RLC jumped 9.98% or P2 to close at P22.05 each at the stock exchange on Thursday. — Arra B. Francia

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