Youth Movement

Young members of a storied family shift property development in Cebu forward with a smart, green commercial tower, rising tall above an heirloom estate

- Al Gerard De La Cruz

For more than 140 years, the Garcias and the Escaños have influenced trade and commerce in Cebu, with diversified interests in sectors ranging from electricity to interisland shipping. Now a new generation has propelled the patrician clan to the vanguard of property development.

JEG Tower @ One Acacia is the debut high-rise venture of JEG Development Corporation (JDC), the real estate enterprise by the descendants of business powerhouse Jose Escaño Garcia.

Pre-certified LEED Silver for core and shell, the grade A building represents a technological, sustainable leap for built spaces outside Manila. The 22-storey tower, designed by Casas Architects, recalls the Flatiron Building with its svelte profile, but with a diagonally slanting, tapered corner.

When Marko Sarmiento, Jose’s grandson and chief operating officer of JDC, performed strategic planning for the tower in 2015, vertical green building had not truly taken hold in Cebu yet. “We wanted to be known as the local developer that went green ahead of everybody else,” he says.

But the family has had quite the headstart, businesswise. Founding patriarch Don Fernando Escaño established in 1879 the enterprise Viuda y Hijos de F. Escaño Incorporada, which would later subsume the power distribution utility Visayas Electric Company (VECO).

JEG Tower @ One Acacia was built “with the Cebuano in mind,” says Ayla Gomez, Sarmiento’s cousin and brand manager at JDC. “We are mindful of our impact on the environment and to the future generations of Cebuanos.”