Posted on May 26, 2014 09:30:39 PM [
BusinesWorld Online ]
MEGAWORLD Corp. is expanding its first
township project in the country in a bid to ride on an expected increase in
demand for office space, the property developer said in a statement attached to
a disclosure yesterday.
Megaworld said it has acquired property at the eastern side of the
township along Eastwood Palmtree Avenue beside Eastwood Le Grand Tower 3 for
this purpose.
The acquisition will increase Eastwood
City’s size by 1.5 hectares (ha) to 18.5 ha., the developer said.
On the new site will rise at least
three mixed-use buildings that will offer around 100,000 square meters (sq.m.)
of office space between 2016 and 2018 and about 600 residential units.
“All towers will have leasable
commercial space at the ground levels,” the statement read.
Established in 1999, the existing
17-ha Eastwood City now has 21 high-rise residential towers with 7,250
condominium units and 25,000 residents. It also currently accommodates 500
commercial and retail locators, as well as offices of 59 companies employing an
estimated 60,000 information technology and business process outsourcing (BPO)
workers, Megaworld said. A brief on Eastwood City named Accenture, Citi, IBM,
Dell, Concentrix and WNS Global Services Philippines, Inc. among big-name
global locators with offices there.
In a press briefing in Eastwood
Richmonde Hotel yesterday, Harold C. Geronimo, Megaworld’s public relations and
communications head, said the planned new towers could have as many as 40-50
floors.
Megaworld Senior Vice-President
Jericho P. Go said in the same briefing that while specific projects are still
in the planning stage, the company hopes to launch some of them soon. “The
advantage of Eastwood City, particularly in the BPO side, is there is already a
pent-up demand for 30,000-50,000 sq.m. [of office space], so they’re just
waiting for the building to be built right there,” he said.
He noted that Eastwood City was not
affected by floods last year and in recent past that otherwise paralyzed
business in much of Metro Manila and sought to allay fears of the area’s
proximity to the West Valley Fault, which is believed to be overdue for a quake
that could devastate the metropolis. “Before Citibank and IBM signed with us,
they sent engineers, architects and geologists to study the fault line and they
were able to validate with almost 100% certainty that we are not along -- and
we are not even close -- to the fault line,” Mr. Go said. -- DJM
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