By Iris C.
Gonzales (The Philippine Star) | Updated July 22, 2015 - 12:00am
UPBEAT ON
UPTOWN: Presenting the ongoing construction of the new office towers in the
15.4-hectare Uptown Bonifacio township of Megaworld are (2nd from left) Jericho
Go, senior vice president and (3rd from left) Harold Geronimo, head of public
relations and communications.
MANILA,
Philippines - Megaworld Corp., a property developer owned by tycoon Andrew Tan,
is pouring in P20 billion to construct 12 new office buildings in three of its
four townships in Fort Bonifacio.
In a press
briefing yesterday, Megaworld senior vice president Jericho Go said the new
projects would bring its total office space inventory in Fort Bonifacio to more
than twice its current 300,000 square meters by 2018.
Four office
towers are currently being built in Uptown Bonifacio, the company’s
15.4-hectare integrated urban township in the northern part of Fort Bonifacio
near Kalayaan Avenue.
These are the
15-storey Uptown tower 1, with a size of 30,000 sqm; the 15-storey Uptown tower
2 (30,000 sqm), the 20-storey Uptown tower 3 (40,000 sqm) and the 25-storey
Alliance Global Tower.
Alliance
Global Tower will serve as the corporate headquarters of the companies under
Alliance Global Group Inc., the holding firm of Tan.
Uptown towers
1 and 2 will be finished and delivered this year while tower 3 is scheduled for
next year, Go said.
“Aside from
the four towers, the company is also building six more campus-type office
towers in its new township, the 34.5-hectare McKinley West – One West Campus,
Two West Campus, Three West Campus, Five West Campus, Six West Campus and Eight
West Campus.
Each tower is
five-storey high with 10,000 sqm of leasable office spaces, Go said.
“There is a remarkable demand for sustainable
campus-type office buildings especially after we built 8 Campus Place in
McKinley Hill, the first LEED Gold-certified BPO office building in the
country,” Go said.
“We look
forward to our LEED certification for these new office buildings in McKinley
West as well,” he added.
LEED stands
for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Developed by the US Green
Building Council, it is a set of rating systems for the design, construction,
operation and maintenance of green buildings and homes.
Go said
within three years, two more office towers are in the pipeline which will also
rise in Fort Bonifacio.
These new
office towers will add around 140,000 square meters to the company’s office
space inventory.
“We envision Uptown Bonifacio to rise as a
bustling central business district of Fort Bonifacio. At present, several
multinational companies have already signed up to set up their operations here.
Uptown Towers
1, 2 and 3 are now 90 percent leased out even before we have completed the
delivery of the said towers. These office towers are all LEED-registered,” he
said.
Go said that
among those who have signed for lease are financial institutions, insurance and
IT firms which are all Fortune 500 companies.
Megaworld now
has 19 office towers in McKinley Hill covering around 300,000 sqm of office
space inventory.
The property
developer currently has 712,000 sqm of office space inventory, mostly leased to
IT-BPO companies. It has over 130 companies in its portfolio of office tenant
partners.
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