Real estate innovation through differentiation

by The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines – As luxury real estate consumers standards become higher, developers and investors are likewise doing their best to stand out. One sure fire way to do this, says Century Properties managing director Robbie Antonio, is to innovate through differentiation.

In a roundtable discussion at the recent Wall Street Journal executive conference, “Unleashing Innovation”, Antonio said that differentiation is effective simply because buyers who are paying top-money expect no less than premium products.

“Differentiated products are not only eye-catching, they also offer lifestyles that are notches higher than what the market has been accustomed to”, Antonio said.

Attended by some 200 executives comprised of various industry leaders, entrepreneurs as well as personalities in the business of innovation from around the world, the Wall Street Journal conference encouraged participants to “debate on the most cutting-edge ideas in business and technology today in the hope of inspiring “practical advice and strategies to drive innovation in large companies, small businesses and society.

Speakers included top business executives such as Eduardo Saverin, Facebook co-founder and Investor, John G. Rice, vice chairman of General Electric Company, Owen Mahoney, CFO and CAO of Nexon, James E. Rogers, chairman, president and CEO of Duke Energy, Vineet Nayar, vice chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies, Ya-Qin Zhang, chairman of Microsoft Asia-Pacific R&D Group and Corporate vice president, Microsoft, as well as academics such as Tarun Khanna, Professor at the Harvard Business School, and Director, The South Asia Initiative at Harvard University and Pericles Lewis, Founding President and Professor of Humanities at Yale-NUS College.

Antonio represented the only Philippine company in the forum which scaled a full range of topics from the history of the human imagination, conquering foreign markets through local innovation, less expensive medical innovations, and the recruitment of great creative talent in various industries.

The Century Properties International Collaborations head provided the highlights of luxury Philippine real estate with focus on the differentiation strategy that his company has taken on in recent years and which will continue to do so with more brand collaborations already underway.

Branded successes

Century Properties has a string of successes with its differentiated real estate products, most of which are collaborations with upmarket brands such as the New York-based Trump Organization, Italian design powerhouses Versace Home and MissoniHome, international icon and real estate heiress Paris Hilton and most recently, the most acclaimed international design company based in Europe, yoo Inspired by Starck.

Each of these brands has seeped into local real estate and home design culture with their design offerings of Century Properties projects such as the Trump Tower at Century City, the Milano Residences, the Azure Urban Resort Residences and the Acqua Private Residences Livingstone and Iguazu towers. The entry of the brands have since upped the ante in the local industry and sparked a change in the game.

As unprecedented and landmark partnerships, they have allowed the company to create real estate products that feature never-before introduced and ultra-modern living choices.

Our partner brands have their own distinct aesthetic or design ethos that provide them with directions in designing lifestyle experiences Antonio, who is also Century Properties head of International Collaborations, said.  

Common among such projects are personalized, leisure and wellness-oriented, sustainable and intelligent features.

Century Properties brings personalized living experiences through designs and amenities custom-fitted to a community who share similar lifestyles.

Azure is for families who have embraced laidback living offered by a resort-oriented environment while Acqua is for highly mobile families and individuals with an inclination towards high- design and green living.  

In all of its luxury towers, leisure facilities are a common sight. Spas, built-in pools, modern children play places and themed green-properties have all proven to be a hit.

The Milano Residences has Loggia units, which have their own pools overlooking the metropolis, giving unit owners a rare leisure experience. Meanwhile, Trump Tower has its own luxurious set of spa facilities such as a spa, spa lounge and pool that also overlooks the city. 

Abundant green spaces and pocket parks across its projects promote holistic well-being for their residents, as evident in the Acqua Private Residences. yoo inspired by Starck for instance, has created designs that promote a consciousness of nature or the environment.  

Introducing the “hyperamenatized” living experience

Century Properties has also differentiated its products through its hyperamenitized living spaces or projects with large-scale and modern amenities.

At the Gramercy Residences, a multi-level sky park that features an infinity pool, a lap pool, a kiddie pool, a sky garden, a gym, a spa, a mini movie theater, a restaurant and more have been provided. The Knightsbridge, Acqua and Azure developments likewise all have a mix of some of these amenities all aimed at offering leisure to their residents.

Century Properties has also infused modern technology into its developments buyers are beginning to clamor for smarter products. Beginning with The Gramercy Residences, Century partnered with PLDT to make it the most modern residential infrastructure in the country with its powerful interconnectivity capabilities, whether through internet connection, cable TV or telephony services.

These modern conveniences are also expected to be rolled this out in Century™ other luxury developments.

With the successes of its projects, Century Properties has proven that differentiation might as well be another name for luxury.

The Next Big Thing

BY LAUREN TAN, Prestige Online

He has collaborated with a sea of name-droppable luminaries including architectural legend IM Pei, design extraordinaire Philippe Starck, and the Trumps, Hiltons and Missonis. But these days, the name making waves is that of his own — Robbie Antonio.
Like business partners Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric Trump, with whom he recently launched Trump Tower Manila, Antonio is a real estate scion who can actually boast of have stepped out of the shadows of an illustrious father by seizing opportunities and adding lustre to the family portfolio.
Son of Jose Antonio, the billionaire founder of Philippines-based Century Properties, the 35-year-old’s first taste of the headlines was in the late 2000s when instead of returning home from the US after graduate school, he incorporated the firm Antonio Development and built The Centurion, a luxury condominium in New York’s Plaza District.
Antonio’s coup was not only in acquiring the area’s first ground-up development in 20 years, but also in securing the services of IM Pei, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect critically lauded for the Bank of China building in Hong Kong, Raffles City in Singapore and the Pyramid of the Louvre in Paris. Designed in collaboration with his son Sandi, The Centurion is the only condominium Pei has designed in a six-decade career.
Could the next-generation property magnate not have chosen a more difficult project to cut his teeth on, I ask when we meet on the sidelines of an art fair in Singapore. (Blouin Artinfo describes him as one of the Philippines’ biggest art collectors, if not, certainly its youngest.) Barely skipping a beat, he says: “It would have been a little too easy at that time to go home to the Philippines and see what I could do there to contribute to [Century Properties]. I wanted to do something very entrepreneurial. It was obviously very challenging, but very rewarding.”
In New York, he met Ivanka who introduced him to the rest of the clan including dad Donald. Professing the mantra “country first, company second, and project third”, Antonio, who had by then returned to the family fold, set out to convince The Apprentice star of his hometown’s growing economic might, resulting in a publicity feat of sizable proportions — Trump Tower Manila, the first Trump-branded property in Asia this decade. Developed by Century Properties, the residential development will become the Philippines’ tallest building when completed in 2016.
“The Trumps are about the superlatives. They want to be the biggest, the tallest, it’s always an -est. Keeping that philosophy in mind we had to convince them it was the right property at the right time,” says Antonio. On the Donald, he adds: “With him you have to be very direct and very specific about what the goals and targets are in a short amount of time. The guy is brilliant.”
As managing director of Century Properties, Antonio is in charge of innovating game-changing projects and branding initiatives. His Trump deal is only but one in a recent slew of big-name tie-ups. Versace Home is designing the interiors of the group’s Milano Residences in Makati. MissoniHome is bringing its colourful aesthetic to the Residences at Acqua Livingstone. And John Hitchcox and Philippe Starck’s design studio Yoo is charged with Acqua Iguaza, the pair’s first residential tower in the Philippines.
Star architects and designers are a big draw to homebuyers, he says: “It’s pride of ownership. When you own the first condominium by Versace in Asia or the first Missoni condominium in the world, it’s limited edition.” Such collaborations, he also acknowledges, allow the group to “achieve a premium”. “I have a commercial point of view and an aesthetic point of view, and I like to marry that and keep a balance between those two,” he explains.
Antonio, after all, comes across as the sort of art-and-design geek who can write a dissertation on Abstract Expressionism or the Mid-Century aesthetic off the top of his head. It’s that fixation with creative expression that even has the entrepreneur picking out door hinges in person, or flying to China or Italy to look for just the right stones for his buildings. “I’m 100-percent focused on the details, too obsessed sometimes,” he concedes.
Robbie Antonio on…
Personal style
“Because of what I do, people think I care a lot about brands. But sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I don’t wear logos and 90 percent of the time I don’t even wear a belt or watch. I’m more particular about design and I tend to favour bespoke items because it’s about personal style and taste.”
Some of the artists he collects
“Marilyn Minter, Maurizio Cattelan, Kenny Scharf and Tracey Emin. They are all people who I have either met or respect for their tremendous amounts of knowledge in their art. Art is not just visual. It’s how your sensibilities are affected or influenced.”
His new New York residence
“It’s going to be completely contemporary and super abstract. Because I gravitate to art and design, I have to make sure that it’s visually impactful. It’s a project I’m super obsessed with.”