Property developer R-II Builders is eyeing a port operations project in Bacolod City , its chairman Reghis Romero II said yesterday.

“We are looking into Bacolod …With our experience in port operations, we can convert the domestic into an international port. (There are) industries that we are tied up with that we can bring here,” he said.

Romero, national president of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders' Association, was in Bacolod City in a meeting with the CREBA-Negros Chapter headed by Eddie Pestaño.

R-II Builders owns and operates the Harbour Centre Port Terminal, a modern port situated within the 79-hectare Manila Harbour Centre, a development project which included the former Smokey Mountain garbage dump site.

“We are looking for other ports. We at R-II Builders are called a port city developer. We develop the port, we operate (it), and we create the industrial and commercial (opportunities). Once you have (these) then you have housing,” he said.

Asked about his local contacts for the possible Bacolod project, Romero said: “Yung (It's) CREBA. I talk with CREBA, (with) qualified developers.”

He did not yet identify a specific site in Bacolod where his company's planned port project could be developed.

At present, the city has two major commercial ports, the BREDCO port at the Reclamation area and the Negros Navigation port in Banago.

Romero said he is taking interest in Bacolod because it is a center of commercial activity. “There are a lot of possibilities in Bacolod . It can become an education hub,” he said.

He noted that if Bacolod becomes an education hub, more people will come to the city, which could mean more consumers.

BEDROOM COMMUNITIES

In his talk with CREBA-Negros Chapter officers and members, Romero said that with Bacolod 's thriving student population, he believes it would be wise for developers to “think of shelter facilities along this line.”

“Business in Negros Occidental is heavily concentrated in Bacolod , you may want to look at neighboring towns where bedroom communities for professionals and their families may thrive,” Romero told local developers.

He explained that bedroom communities is a phenomenon in Manila where professionals buy housing units outside Metro Manila only to serve as their bedroom or weekend abode.*NLG

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