Visitors coming to the city now will not recognize it when they come back five years from now if they just look at it from their airline seats.
By then, 40 huge new buildings will dominate its skyline, based on the records of the City Building Office.
These tall new buildings will not only change the city’s skyline, but will also contribute to its ever-growing economy. “These new buildings will become a big factor to the economic growth of the city,” said Arturo M. Milan, president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
An icon for the city
Among these buildings will be the Diamond Tower, the 15-story flagship building of the Floirendo Group at its Damosa Information Technology Park.
Ricardo F. Lagdameo, vice president of the Damosa Land Inc., the property development arm of the group, said that the target of the company is to build an “iconic structure” similar to those in other countries.
Lagdameo, grandson of the company founder, the late Don Antonio O. Floirendo, said the plan is for the building to “encapsulate the history of the company and the city” as it will depict the group’s beginnings, like the banana farming.
Don Floirendo, who started his business venture in the city by selling Ford vehicles through the Davao Motor Sales (Damosa) was also known as among the pioneers of banana growing for exports in the Davao Region through the Tagum Agricultural Development Corp. in Davao del Norte.
Lagdameo said that if one looks at the building by the time it is completed in 2020, the person will be able to see banana fibers.
Electricity requirements
Because of all of these developments, the city, along with the rest of Mindanao, will eventually need additional sources of electricity.
On average, a building will need at least five megawatts of electricity, said Romeo M. Montenegro, deputy executive director at the Mindanao Development Authority and head of the Mindanao Power Monitoring Council.
The buildings will not only be the one requiring electricity as the city’s outskirts have also been attracting investors that want to convert these idle lands into commercial business district. Just like a building, a CBD development will require between five to 10 megawatts of power.
The cityd’s power requirements, based on the record of the Davao Light and Power Co., are about 410 megawatts and are growing by 6.5% annually.
Milan, also the advisor of the Aboitiz Equity Ventures and a retired executive of Davao Light, the subsidiary of the Aboitiz Power Corp., said that the city’s distribution unit “will continue to look for new cheaper power sources to satisfy the growing needs of its franchise area.”
After all, the city will eventually become among, if not the most, industrialized cities in the country five years from now.
