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By Likha C. Cuevas, Reporter
Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) is
developing a mixed-use campus in the old Yulo estate in Canlubang,
Laguna, where a number of residential and business process
outsourcing (BPO) facilities would rise this year.
Miriam Katigbak, ALI head
of signature project for the landbank management group, said
development in the 1,600-hectare land owned by the Yulo family is
already in its first phase. The largest real-estate developer in the
country has allocated P1 billion for the infrastructure and
landscaping, excluding residential and office buildings.
”Because the way we are
handling things is [that] the joint-venture (JV) companies that own
the land will be doing the infrastructure and then we turn to the
various [ALI units] to do their [respective] projects, we manage the
company and we manage the project but it’s a JV company,”
Katigbak said.
The infrastructure involves the
construction of roads and landscaping around a lake, which would be
the center of the ALI residential development. Katigbak said this
would be the preparatory development for the campus that would
include BPO and retail buildings for lease.
The sales launch for the three
residential subdivisions within the estate would be by the end of
the year and the grand launch for the whole Canlu-bang project is
scheduled for the second quarter of next year.
The real estate arm of the Ayala
group is aggressively pursuing the BPO office market as demand for
office space has gone up in the last few years. At present, the
combined gross leasable area of its BPO building along De la Rosa
Street in Makati and the HSBC building in Fort Bonifacio is 36,000
square meters.
Marivic Añonuevo, the ALI
executive in charge of the company’s office buildings development,
said the company would double its leasable area by the end of the
year to early 2008.
“We intend to have
diversification both in geographies and product lines. We broke
ground in UP S&T park, which would give us around 110,000 square
meters, primarily as a BPO campus. We’re also launching a BPO
space in Manila. We might go north and the Visayas region is also
folded in,” she said.
ALI has already closed the
parking area in front of the Intercontinental Hotel Manila to make
way for another BPO building that would be connected to the
Glorietta mall through the underground parking space.
The Ayala Center, the country’s
premier shopping center, is also slated for redevelopment that would
involve the construction of BPO offices and hotels on top of
Glorietta. Preconstruction phase would start this year.
Within the next five years,
ALI plans to spend P15 to P20 billion for the development of 500,000
square meters of BPO office space.
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