Megaworld to build P5-B BPO complex in Iloilo

Tycoon Andrew Tan-led Megaworld Corp. has earmarked about P5 billion to build 10 office towers in Iloilo Business Park by 2021, grooming this area to be a major information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) hub.

The upcoming office towers in the 72-hectare business park are seen to open up 100,000 square meters of office space inventory and generate around 30,000 jobs in the IT-BPO sector in five to seven years, the company said in a press statement on Friday.

“Iloilo Business Park is positioned to be Western Visayas’ biggest cyberpark and a major hub for IT-BPO outside of Metro Manila. More and more BPO companies have already expressed strong interest to set up operations in Iloilo Business Park. Most of them are first-time locators,” Megaworld first vice president Jericho Go said.

As part of the first phase of the IT-BPO cluster of the township, three office towers are set to be operational within this year—One Global Center, Two Global Center, and the Richmonde Tower.

Colorado-based StarTek, Inc., one of the leading BPOs in the country, with call centers located throughout the US, Latin America, Canada, Honduras, and Costa Rica, will be the first company to set up operations in Two Global Center tower by August this year. The four-storey tower has a total of 9,000 square meters of office spaces that could accommodate around 2,600 workers.

“With StarTek coming in to jumpstart our cyberpark operations, we see Iloilo City rising fast to become a major BPO hub in the region,” Go said.

Megaworld is a leading office space developer in the country with around 27 corporate office towers across the country—11 in Eastwood City, 14 in McKinley Hill, one in Newport City, and one in The Mactan Newtown in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu. Ten more office towers are expected to be completed this year in Uptown Bonifacio, The Mactan Newtown, Iloilo Business Parkand McKinley Hill.

Megaworld recently announced that it is expanding its office space inventory to 712,000 sq m this year, cementing its position as a leading office developer and landlord.

The company estimates that 110,000 people are now working in Megaworld’s townships. The biggest hubs are in Eastwood City, the country’s first IT park; and McKinley Hill, the company’s biggest township project in Metro Manila which is also home to four foreign embassies and four international schools. Doris C. Dumlao