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By Likha C. Cuevas, Reporter
THE Philippines’ premier
shopping center is set to undergo redevelopment to increase the
property’s value, according to Ayala Land Inc. (ALI).
Miriam Katigbak, ALI head of
signature project for the landbank management group, said the Ayala
Center is up for redevelopment with the pre-construction phase to be
laid out this year. The whole project will take 8 to 10 years to
complete, she said.
“We need to get more value out
of the land in Makati. As you know prices have gone up
significantly,” she added.
The redevelopment of the Ayala
Center would be done in three phases and would involve constructing
business process outsourcing (BPO) buildings and hotels on top of
the existing Glorietta Malls, the ALI executive said.
She said the existing shopping
center structure would have to be torn down as this was not built to
hold more floors on top of it.
“We’re not going to shut down
the shopping center—the whole area will continue to operate while
we do the phasing that’s why it takes a little bit of time. We
should do some preliminary work this year but I think phase 1 would
be a year or so later,” she said.
The company has yet to finalize
the project cost, but Katigbak said it would be “significant”
because ALI would continue to redevelop Ayala Center into a
mixed-use property.
Part of the master plan, the ALI
executive said, is to make the area more dense by adding floors to
the existing 3-floor shopping center and opening more floor space
for retail stores, with the upper floors to be set aside for BPO
offices and hotels.
“The land can be utilized so
much more. So part of that you put the uses on top and then at the
same time you get a chance to upgrade your buildings. It’s been 15
years since we started. We upgrade it, it’s the 21st century.
Let’s give the public something new,” Katigbak said.
Besides constructing buildings on
top of Glorietta, ALI also plans to close the parking area in front
of the InterContinental Hotel to make way for another BPO building
and build more underground parking that would be interconnected with
the existing basement parking areas of the malls.
Part of the redevelopment of
Ayala Center would also involve construction of new bridgeways,
installation of traffic lights and redistribution of parking spaces
surrounding the area to decongest pedestrian and vehicle traffic.
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