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A MALL will soon rise in a 28 hectare property at the South Road Properties (SRP) if the Cebu City government will close a deal anytime this year with a mall investor .
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmena said that he was not at liberty to divulge the name of the investor but the city was expected to get at least P2.6 billion payable within five years from the outright sale.
"One of the proposals of the buyer is that they will complete a very big mall. I don't know exactly how big but they are going to build it within two years," Osmeña said.
The city government will, however, open for bidding the property sought by the investor.
Osmena said he was not naming the investor because he didn't want the agreement to be jeopardized by his critics just like what they did to the city's joint venture deal with Filinvest Land Inc.
The JV deal will allow Filinvest to develop 50-hectares of SRP for P25 billion.
Rep. Antonio Cuenco (Cebu City south) earlier said that a congressional inquiry on the Filinvest Land Inc. JV deal with the city government would be conducted within the week.
?Don't tell the province that we have a buyer because they say we are broke. We have no customer,? Osmeña said.
The mayor said he was motivated to sell the property to this investor because the value of the rest of the SRP would increase if there would be a mall there.
"You have a mall there everything else goes up supposedly, that is something that we put as a condition," he said.
The mayor does not mind if the bidding will be on a Swiss challenge as long as the investor will not sleep on the property that was just bought.
"It doesn't necessarily be a swiss challenge, but we have an approval here from COA (Commission on Audit). We can sell properties by Swiss challenge but we don't have to sell it all that way," Osmeña said.
Even if the transaction of the sale would be an outright sale, the mayor said the sale contract would have a requirement, which would compel the buyer to develop the property in a specific period of time.
"We can control it a lot better if it is a joint venture but this one is a sale so we will put a requirement there -- should the sale materialize they will give us approximately P2.6 billion for the 28 hectares, to be paid in five years, shorter than FLI which is 6 years," Osmeña said. /Reporter Marian Z. Codilla
