EXPECTING to spend an estimated P4.5 billion in putting up Raffles Suites and Residences Manila, Kingdom Hotel Investment Inc. (KHI) began preselling units that would initially cost up to P81 million each.  

“I believe we’re in that league,” Bryan John Turner, general manager of sales, replied when asked if their price puts the full-service apartments at the highest end.

The Dubai, United Arab Emirates-headquartered Kingdom Hotel is investing $100 million in its 30-story condominium building, which will rise near the Greenbelt shopping center in Makati City.

Turner, who heads KHI’s business in the Philippines, said the company’s excavation is now on the third level of its planned basement parking area.

“We’ll be moving [construction] up by summer [next year],” he added.

Turner said the glass-and-steel building would be completed by the second half of 2010.

KHI is selling 220 Raffles Residences units at one- to four-bedroom cuts.

Four four-bedroom unfurnished penthouse units between 383 to 402 square meters (sq m) each would be sold at an initial price of $1.8 million ($4,477.6 per sq m.) each.

A one-bedroom unit of up to 82 sq m. has an initial offer price of up to $350,000 each. KHI has allotted 80 units of this type for sale.

The company is also preselling nine 1 2-bedroom units of between 124 and164 sq m at an initial price of up to $390,000. Some 45 of the 3-bedroom units, meanwhile, are up for grabs, with the largest-size cuts at $1.25 million each.

Turner said KHI is targeting a market composed of local “chief executive officers and prominent vice presidents.” A third of their target market are expatriates, especially those from Hong Kong and Singapore, according to Turner. The apartment units would be spread from the 11th to the 30th floor of the building, while the 9th floor and 10th floor are being reserved for the Raffles Hotel. Fairmont Makati Hotel will occupy the first up to eighth floor.

Turner said KHI began the project after buying the 1.2-hectare lot from Ayala Land Inc., which owns 20-percent equity.

Property broker CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) priced the KHI development project at $153 million.

CBRE said in a separate statement that this project would contribute to the residential condominium space in Makati City—a total of 18,143 units between 2008 and 2013.

CBRE is touting the Philippines as “the hottest market in Southeast Asia.”

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