EXPECT Cagayan de Oro to continually boom for the next three years or so. The old Lumbia airport in Cagayan de Oro City has already been earmarked by Rep.-elect Jose Benjamin Benaldo to be the next economic zone in Northern Mindanao. In fact, this will be the very first bill that the congressman-elect will file once he assumes this post come July.

According to Benaldo, it is ripe for the sprawling old Lumbia airport to be converted into an economic zone once the whole airport facilities be transferred to nearby Laguindingan in western Misamis Oriental. In fact, the area around the airport itself has already been booked by Rockwell as a state-of-the-art shopping center. The shopping mall is expected to rise in the next ten years or so. Development of the Gokongwei-owned Robinson’s Land Subdivision across the old Lumbia airport is in full swing as we speak.

On the city’s eastern hemisphere, construction is starting at the first skyscraper in Mindanao, the 21-storey Limketkai Hotel. Right near the hotel will rise a branch of Starbucks, the first of its kind in Cagayan de Oro City. Never has CDO look good with Benaldo’s winning as congressman.