DataLand Inc: What the Philippine Developer Has Delivered, and What Is Still on Paper

DataLand, Inc. has finished and handed over four projects in its first decade, and its largest announced tower is still not built seven years after construction started. That gap between the completed portfolio and the announced pipeline is the useful thing to understand about this Metro Manila developer, and it is not something a project brochure will tell you.

The company is the property development arm of DDT Konstract, Inc., a Philippine building contractor. Both sit inside a family group, and the corporate name carries the family's name: according to a 2018 Inquirer profile, chairman Engr. Danilo D. Tamayo conceptualised the company name five years before it was established, and "Data" stands for Danilo Tamayo. The same profile identifies group companies including DDT Konstract, Inc., DataLand, Inc., Whiteport, Inc., Dataj Aquafarm Inc., Agriwaras Ventures Inc. and the Andres P. Tamayo Sr. Foundation Inc.

Who runs it

The leadership is closely held. Engr. Andrea Tamayo-Ulep is president, and the 2018 Inquirer profile describes her as a daughter of the founders who had previously headed Whiteport, Inc. for eight years. A company post covering the topping-off of The Olive Place Tower 1 names Rosaleo Montenegro as vice chairman, Rouen Abel Raz as vice president for sales and marketing, Engr. Cynthia Tamayo as vice president of DDT Konstract, Inc., Gil Somblingo as chief finance officer of DDT Konstract, Inc., Engr. Edimar Ulep as chief operating officer and general manager of Whiteport, Inc., and Dennis Hung as business development project head for the project.

Press reporting adds two more names. A BusinessWorld report dated 19 October 2022 identifies Joseph Ramil B. Lombos as executive vice president and Felimon G. Yee Jr. as vice president for development and the customer turnover group. A Philippine Star feature of 11 November 2022 gives Lombos the additional title of chief financial officer of the DDT Group and names Marian Roxas as vice president and head of sales and marketing.

For a buyer, the practical point of that list is that the developer, the contractor and the group holding both are run by the same family. Single-group structures are common and entirely lawful in Philippine property. They matter because the contractor's performance and the developer's solvency are not independent of each other, so a construction problem in one entity is not insulated from the company selling you the unit.

What has actually been delivered

The company's own project pages describe The Silk Residences in Sta. Mesa, Manila, MyCube in Biñan, Laguna, The Miren Enclaves in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, and North Gateway Business Park in Tuguegarao City as operating, and state that The Olive Place Tower 1 is completed with Tower 2 under construction.

The Olive Place is the flagship. It is a two-tower, 50-storey residential development at 407 Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong, and Tower 1 topped off in a ceremony reported in December 2021. The building database SKYDB lists Tower 2 at 48 floors above ground with its structure topped out and the building still under construction. A structure that has topped out has reached its full height, which is not the same as being finished, fitted out, licensed for occupancy or turned over. Buyers reading "topped off" in marketing material should treat it as a construction milestone rather than a handover date.

The announced pipeline is where the record thins. The tower first known as DDT Sky Tower, on EDSA at Mother Ignacia Avenue in Quezon City, began construction in 2019 according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Wikipedia's entry on the building states the project was delayed and stayed at the second or third floor for many months. In 2022 the scheme was restructured from a single office tower into a two-tower mixed-use development valued at 11 billion pesos and renamed 947 Sky Towers, with BusinessWorld reporting a formal launch targeted for the end of the first quarter of 2023. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat currently lists the building at 280 metres to roof, 62 floors above ground, with completion in 2027. Construction that starts in 2019 and completes in 2027 is an eight-year cycle on a single building.

A second announced project, a mixed-use development on Carreon corner Delas Alas Streets, has not been confirmed as launched in any source we could find. The published accounts of it also disagree. The Philippine Star feature places it in Sta. Ana and gives a site of 4,833 square metres with a launch by the end of 2023. BusinessWorld describes a 4,855 square metre site with two 40-storey towers and 1,480 residential units launching in the fourth quarter of 2024. Neither figure has been superseded by a completion announcement.