Megaworld office leases on the rise

MANILA, Philippines — Megaworld Premier Offices, the office leasing arm of Andrew Tan’s listed Megaworld Corp. grew its office take-ups to 214,000 square meters in the nine months to September, up from 191,000 sqm recorded in the same period a year ago.

According to the company, 36 percent of these leases were new deals mostly in Uptown Bonifacio, McKinley Hill, Southwoods City, and Davao Park District with around 79 percent from the IT-BPM sector (Information Technology and Business Process Management).

Other new lease transactions were also recorded in Eastwood City, McKinley West, and The Mactan Newtown during the period.

Other lease agreements were renewals mostly from BPO companies in Eastwood City, Uptown Bonifacio, McKinley West, McKinley Hill, and Iloilo Business Park.

Roland Tiongson, first vice president at Megaworld Premier Offices, who is also the president of MREIT Fund Managers Inc. said several tenants opted to retain their spaces.

“The demand still remains despite earlier speculations that the work-from-home arrangements will lead to massive vacancies,” said Tiongson.

In Iloilo Business Park, US-based BPO company Nearsol, renewed its almost 3,000 sqm of office space in Three Techno Place and took new spaces of around 2,000 sqm in the nearby Two Fintech Place.

Another US-based BPO company Valor Global Inc., took three floors of Southwoods BPO Tower 1 covering almost 8,000 sqm and another three floors of One Campus Place in McKinley Hill covering almost 6,400 sqm.

Megaworld has around 1.4 million sqm of leasable office space inventory according to the report released by Leechiu Property Consultants in June this year.

It has PEZA-accredited office properties in its various integrated urban townships around the country.

These are in Eastwood City in Quezon City; Uptown Bonifacio, McKinley Hill, and McKinley West in Taguig City; Iloilo Business Park in Iloilo City; Davao Park District in Lanang, Davao City; Southwoods City in Biñan, Laguna; The Mactan Newtown in Cebu; and Arcovia City in Pasig City.

Aside from these, Megaworld is also building more office towers in new townships.

Among the planned office expansions are in The Upper East in Bacolod City; Maple Grove in General Trias, Cavite; Capital Town in San Fernando, Pampanga; and Northwin Global City in Marilao-Bocaue, Bulacan.