CitraRaya wins awards

JAKARTA (JP): The Ciputra Group has won the Gold Nugget Grand Awards category for best urban planning for the CitraRaya housing complex in Tangerang, West Java.

The president director of the group, Ciputra, received the award at a ceremony at the Pacific Coast Builder Conference 1996 in San Francisco on Saturday.

Ciputra told a teleconference from San Francisco that the award was given to CitraRaya for its special artistic concept.

"Art is the CitraRaya's main concept. It was considered as an innovation and made us the winner of the grand award," Ciputra said.

He explained that the real estate company assigned five percent of the infrastructure's total costs to art, such as placing several statues on the complex's main streets, building an art gallery, a museum, a music school and an art center.

Ciputra said to achieve the target his company has made an arts program master plan.

The 1,000-hectare project, which started two years ago, is designed to accommodate 100,000 houses. So far 6,000 houses have been built.

Ciputra, a successful developer who also owns other real estate companies Jaya, Metropolitan, Pondok Indah and Bumi Serpong Damai groups, has been participating in the competition since 1992.

"That our project won the grand prize is a big leap from our previous achievements," he said.

Four of his projects won Gold Nugget Merit Awards, Pantai Indah Kapuk in 1992, Jaya Ancol in 1993, Mal Pondok Indah in 1993 and Mal Ciputra in 1994. (yns)