For Architect Romolo V. Nati, coming to the Philippines was a decision he matured and worked on carefully after several exploratory trips.
He probably would have never thought of coming over had he not met a couple of Filipinos while working and studying in Washington, D.C. Having developed a very close friendship with them, it was only a matter of time before an invitation to see the Philippines was floated. Finally, Nati landed in Manila in 2007.
He did like what he saw and decided to look for a partner to set up a real-estate development company. After several exploratory trips, he met lawyer Jojo Leviste, with whom he shared the same vision and advocacy about sustainable development.
January 2009 saw the birth of a new company, Italpinas Development Corp. (IDC), conceived as a design-driven real-estate company that develops sustainable properties in emerging provinces in a refreshing new approach.
Affordable sustainability
IDC is innovative in many aspects.
In Nati’s words: “We are the first Italian and Filipino company in the country. We broke the stereotype that green buildings have to be expensive. In fact, we design and develop green buildings that are affordable. We also were among the firsts to start developing condo buildings in the provinces.”
Affordable eco-friendly buildings are pursuit that will certainly allow IDC to pace the growing middle class in a country that consistently shows economic gains.
Going south was a deliberate choice, as the company feel that the country needs to become multipolar and not unipolar, where only Manila experiences development.
Many firsts for this brave new company that went to Cagayan de Oro to build its first mixed-used commercial and residential eco-friendly building, and moves like these do not go unnoticed.
IDC has bagged significant awards for pursuing its philosophy, such as The Special Energy Award in the 2011 edition of Design Against the Elements (DATE) International Design Competition, besting more than 200 entries from 50 countries and was featured on National Geographic Magazine ASIA as one of the Philippines’s new business leaders.
Spring awakenings
Slowly but surely, this is how Italpinas works in carving a niche for itself. Fittingly so, the multiawarded first completed condominium project was christened “Primavera”—Spring in Italian—perhaps signifying an awakening of a more environmentally conscious manner of developing communities that uses less raw materials and more renewable products, reducing emission and waste, thereby, causing less pollution. It is a perspective that should be part and parcel of any developer nowadays.
This first phase will be complemented by Primavera City, a mixed-use condominium project that will feature a massive solar panel on the building’s rooftop, awarded by the Climate Technology Initiative Private Financing Advisory Network (CTI PFAN), whose funding partners include the Asian Development Bank and United States Agency for International Development. It was recognized among the top 10 “most promising clean-energy investment opportunities.
There are other project that are in the pipeline. Next is a development in Santo Tomas, Batangas, dubbed “Miramonti”, conceptualized to fill the need of a southern-based growing community in Luzon.
Strategically located along the express way that connects the National Capital Region to the Batangas port, it is a project envisioned as a self-sustaining hub that will feature a mixed-use condominium and, eventually, host a business-process outsourcing company, a branded hotel and having luxury apartments.
Small and quick
IDC’s philosophy is summed up in Nati’s words:
“We are vertically integrated. We design, build and manage our properties to guarantee quality in every phase of the building life. We use a different kind of design strategy called ‘performance-based design,’ for doing which we are using state-of-the-art parametric software that makes our buildings very well-performing organism. We love what we do. We are small and very fast.”
Such passion was effectively transferred in making IDC a dynamic company that was officially listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in December 2015.
Incidentally, Nati was recently one of the speakers at the listing forum for owners of small, medium and emerging enterprises organized by the Philippine Stock Exchange in coordination with the Development Bank of the Philippines.
Growth never stops
Nati’s career has always been driven to excellence. After graduating summa cum laude in architecture from the La Sapienza University in Rome, he went on to complete an Advanced Course in Urban Landscape and Layers from the University of Tallin in Estonia.
But he has not stopped at that. He is currently finishing his executive masters in Business Administration from the Asian Institute of Management.
And a growing family certainly helps planting roots in his adopted country but always keeping a healthy connection with his loved ones back in his native country, nourished by his frequent visits. It can be considered as having the best of both worlds.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano