Former politician and now businessman Manuel B. Villar Jr. is putting up a second casino inside the eponymous Villar City, a 3,500-hectare development in the southern part of Metro Manila.
The project is pursued by Prime Asset Ventures Inc., the private investment company headed by Villar scion, Manuel Paolo, through wholly-owned subsidiary Vertex Entertainment and Resort Corp. in a development dubbed Gold Coast Entertainment City.
“This is going to be a work of a lifetime—even beyond my lifetime—because of its sheer size. I won’t be able to see it through its full completion but it would be a proud moment for all of us here now to say that we are the pioneers of Villar City,” Villar said.
In the masterplan, Villar City will have 15 satellite cities complementing one another to serve residents, entrepreneurs and companies. The planned cities will include a modern central business district, a tech valley, a university town, and a premier lifestyle hub set against verdant landscapes decorated by a million trees.Villar City spans 15 cities that include Taguig, Las Pinas, Paranaque, Muntinlupa, Bacoor, Dasmarinas, Imus, San Pedro, General Mariano Alvarez, Silang, General Trias, Tanza, Trece Martires, Carmona and Tagaytay.
Last year, Villar bared putting up a casino complex in the 80-hectare Global South at the boundary of Paranaque and Las Pinas in an area near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
Villar has partnered with Korean businessmen to run the casino business due to start operation late this year or the first quarter next year.
Apart from the casino, Villar said the development will feature hotels, condominiums, a mall, a theme park and require investments of around $1 billion.
The Villar Group only last week unveiled the 6.2-kilometer Villar Avenue in Villar City which will serve as main artery of the mixed-used development pursued by the units Vista Land and Lifescapes Inc. and PAVI.
With the group’s acquisition of the 4-kilometer Muntinlupa-Cavite Expressway (MCX), Villar City is positioned as the “new center of gravity” in southern Metro Manila.
At 3,500 hectares, Villar City will be 10 times as big as Bonifacio Global City not only in terms of the number of homes, offices and complexes that will be built but also with respect to its potential contribution to job generation and economic development, the group said.
