For over two decades, Damosa Land, Inc. (DLI), the property development arm of the ANFLOCOR Group of Companies, has been at the forefront and an icon of development in Mindanao.

With a history dating back to post war years in the 1950s, the company — which was first known as Davao Motor Sales (DAMOSA) — started as the country’s dealer of Ford vehicles. Although it flourished as the biggest Ford dealership in Mindanao for more than three decades, the company’s assembly plant closed down in 1984, and started to shift gears to become a development company.

Its transition to being a real estate company took place around the 1990s when it established its first major project — the Damosa District in Lanang, Davao City. A few years after this successful development, the turn of the millennium also marked a brand new opportunity for DAMOSA, which forged ahead with rising developments bearing its new name, DLI.

A landmark destination in Davao City and known as the first master-planned development in the area, the Damosa District is a mixed-use project with commercial, office, and hotel components. To date, this development houses the ANFLOCOR Corporate Center, Damosa Gateway, Damosa Market Basket, Damosa Business Center, and the PEZA-accredited Damosa IT Park.

Among the third generation of the Floirendo family, Ricardo ‘Cary’ Lagdameo heads the dynamic property development arm of the Anflo Group of Companies.

“A number of multinational companies have been with us for a decade, and hence have been able to create numerous jobs and opportunities. We also believe that as a first mover in the area, our project has helped to spur additional developments there,” DLI Vice President Ricardo Floirendo Lagdameo told BusinessWorld in an e-mail.

Over the years, the company expanded from commercial and office spaces to residential, hotels, and industrial parks. Among their projects after the Damosa District are McPod commercial building in the southern part of Davao; the five-storey Topaz Tower in Damosa IT Park; Valley High, a leading lifestyle center in General Santos City; and the expansion of Microtel by Wyndham in General Santos City.

In 2013, DLI also took a major leap with the breaking ground of its first urban residential community — the Damosa Fairlane. According to the company, the high-end subdivision project, located in Lanang, paved the way for DLI to continue developing residential properties across the city.

During these remarkable years, DLI took pride in being the first movers in several real estate spaces in the city, namely: the first PEZA accredited IT Park in Mindanao; the first and largest flexible/co-working space in Mindanao (Regus Business Center); and the first fully-developed industrial park in the Davao Region.

“We are proud of being responsible for several ‘firsts’ in the region. We enjoy taking these calculated risks as our vision has always been to help uplift lives in the region,” DLI said.

DLI also shared that in the residential space, they have evolved from developing horizontal projects to condominiums.

“We are also quite proud of our maiden condominium project, the Seawind, which has won several international real estate awards. We made a conscious decision to establish this project in a new and upcoming area, which others had doubted. We were the first to establish a major, quality project in that area, thereby uplifting the housing options in the Sasa area. We believe this will help to spur further development and investment in that side of the city,” Lagdameo added.

With a trusted reputation of its mother company, the Anflo Group of Companies, that spans more than six decades, DLI — despite competition from larger, more established developers — remains confident in continuing to build projects that will make a significant impact not only on the market but also on the quality of life of Filipinos in Mindanao.

“We have always prided ourselves on being a truly homegrown Davao company — a developer of quality projects in Mindanao. But aside from just being homegrown, we see to it that we develop high-quality projects with a very personal touch from the owners of the company. At the end of the day, we believe that investors will choose based on reputation,” explained the young Floirendo executive.

Looking forward, Lagdameo shared, “We believe Damosa Land will look like a much different company over the next five years as we continue to execute several more exciting projects. Though we will be a much larger company with various new projects in new real estate sectors, we will strive to provide the personal homegrown service that we have been known for.”

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