The acquisitions bring CLI closer to its target of having a total gross leasable area of 200,000 sqm. by 2023.

Cebu Landmasters Inc. (CLI) is ramping up expansion with the acquisition of a 4,328-square meter (sqm) exclusive boutique resort in Mactan, Cebu which it plans to develop into a larger luxury resort by 2023.

The listed Visayas-Mindanao property developer said it aims to transform the Abaca Resort Mactan’s nine rooms into a 100-room all-suite luxury development in four years.

The resort, CLI said, has received “the highest rating from global travel experts (and) is one of the few remaining prime areas with an attractive oceanfront.”

The resort is also near the Mactan Cebu International Airport. It will close in 2020 for the start of the construction.

Additionally, CLI signed a hotel management agreement with The Abaca Group, the company behind the resort and a chain of top-end Cebu restaurants.

“CLI and The Abaca Group will create world-class synergies that will allow us to maximize tourism opportunities in Cebu, a booming growth area supported by large-scale infrastructure development projects such as Terminal 2 of the Mactan Cebu International Airport,” CLI chairman and chief executive officer Jose Soberano III said in a disclosure to the stock exchange.

Meanwhile, The Abaca Group founder Jason Hyatt said the partnership “is a significant step towards (The Abaca Group’s) vision of breaking out as the country’s top homegrown luxury hotel group.”

CLI will be tapping a “reputable foreign architect” to masterplan the redevelopment. It added that the partnership is eyeing a sustainable resort tower that will feature Mactan’s first Sky Villas.

CLI has a total of 58 projects in seven key cities in the VisMin region which are in various stages of development. It has also recently bought the 2-hectare Lowaii Marine Ceby Resort likewise located in Mactan.

The acquisitions bring CLI closer to its target of having a total gross leasable area of 200,000 sqm. by 2023. It has 69,234 sqm. of GLA under construction as of the first half of 2019.

The developer’s consolidated net income in the first half of the year rose 34 percent to P1.109 billion from P826 million in the same period in 2018 with the aid of revenues from high-value projects.