Filinvest sets aside P20B for office building projects

The Filinvest group is investing over P20 billion to build more office towers in Metro Manila and Cebu, mostly catering to the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.

This is in line with its goal to build a 700,000-square-meter office portfolio by 2020.

In an interview with Inquirer last week, Maricel Brion-Lirio, Filinvest Alabang Inc. vice president and group head for offices, talked about a pipeline of office projects that would expand the office portfolio of companies under the Filinvest group, including various units under Filinvest Land Inc. and parent conglomerate Filinvest Development Corp.

The group has 275,000 sqms of combined gross leasable area (GLA) in its office portfolio, mostly in flagship Filinvest City in Alabang.

While the group will build more BPO offices in Alabang, it has lined up new office projects in Pasay, Makati and Quezon City.

Lirio said her team’s goal was to be one of the core businesses of the Filinvest group, which also has interests in the property, banking, power and sugar sectors.

Within the property group, recurring earnings from the combined office and shopping malls portfolio account for about 30 percent of total revenues.

Within Filinvest City’s Northgate Cyberzone in Alabang, the group will build the following: four towers under “Megablock” with an expected GLA of 155,598 sqms (project cost of P4.8 billion); and, Vector Three, a 22-story building with 16 office floors and five podium parking levels with GLA of 39,853 sqms (P1.2 to P1.5 billion).

This November, the group is also turning over Filinvest Two and Three in Northgate, each with 23,784 sqms of office space.

Another big upcoming project is the four-tower Filinvest cyberzone Pasay at Bay City Macapagal Boulevard, which will have 75,000 sqms of GLA and cost about P4 billion to build.

The first tower is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2016.

In Makati, the group is also building 100 West Building on Buendia, which will open up 12,912 sqms of office space by the second quarter of 2018. The project cost is estimated at P1 billion.

Two new Filinvest office projects are likewise rising in Quezon City, one in Cubao at the property near the Edsa crossing that was acquired from the National Bookstore group and another one near GMA7.

The Cubao project, to be called “Activa,” is part of a mixed-use complex of which the BPO component will have 52,000 sqms of GLA. Project cost is estimated at P3.2 billion.

Another BPO hub will likewise be built as part of a mixed-use complex to be called “Studio 7” beside GMA7.

It will have about 36,000 sqms of office space by early 2019. Project cost is estimated at P2 billion.

Finally, the group is also developing a P4-billion BPO complex in Lahug, Cebu, a project undertaken in partnership with the provincial government as this would redevelop an old city jail along Salinas Drive.

The first tower will have 10 storeys and a GLA of 19,937 sqms for completion before the end of this year. The second tower will have 18 BPO office floors and is expected to be completed by end-2016.