Megaworld expands reach

Tycoon Andrew Tan-led Megaworld Corp. is grooming three huge township developments in Iloilo, Cebu and Bacolod into a “Visayas BPO (business process outsourcing) triangle”—envisioned to bring to the office property market 225,000 square meters of new space by 2020.

“We are targeting around 175,000 square meters of office spaces for the BPO industry in these three key cities in the next three years to form the so-called Visayas BPO Triangle,” said Megaworld senior vice president Jericho Go, who leads the group’s office property business.

But by 2020, Go said the target was to bring up Megaworld’s office inventory in the Visayas to 225,000 sqms, depending on market demand.

Once completed, Megaworld expects to generate around 50,000 full-time direct jobs in the BPO sector in these Visayan cities.

“If we talk about direct and indirect jobs, we see around 300,000 for Cebu, Iloilo and Bacolod by end-2019. These include jobs that can be generated within our townships such as those from transport and retail,” Go said in a press statement.

Megaworld’s ongoing 30-hectare development in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu called The Mactan Newtown will have an inventory of office space 80,000 sqms by next year with the opening of two more office towers.

In the 72-hectare Iloilo Business Park township, inventory of office space will reach around 33,000 sqms by the end of this year with the expected completion of one more office tower.

In Bacolod, the company plans to build office towers in its 34-hectare The Upper East township with an initial inventory of 30,000 square meters. The group has started the land development of the area, the former site of the Bacolod-Murcia Milling Co.