President to unveil Mactan Newtown

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III will unveil Megaworld Corp.’s (Megaworld) flagship project, The Mactan Newtown on Wednesday, top officials announced over the weekend.

Aquino will be joined by the company’s top executives, including its chairman and chief executive officer Andrew Tan during the inauguration. Aquino will have a brief tour on the township development.

The event on Wednesday will also highlight the groundbreaking of the firm’s second BPO building.

Megaworld first vice president Jericho Go said in a press briefing they are honored that Aquino will be joining the ceremonies as this signaled “more exciting events” to happen within the firm’s biggest mixed-used special economic zone outside Metro Manila.

Harold Geronimo, Megaworld’s director for strategic marketing and communications, said the company already increased its P10 billion investment for the project. The capex will be disclosed by Tan on Wednesday.

Aquino will tour the five-storey One World Center, the first BPO office tower that opened early this year, which will house EnfraUSA and Results Manila Inc.

First time

Go said these two companies are first-time locators of Cebu and they are set to start operations this April. Both companies are expected to generate close to 2,000 employees.

EnfraUSA is a BPO service provider to a wide range of services, including finance and accounting, collections and customer service, health care, software development, insurance, supply chain and procurement, analytics, enterprise application, IT infrastructure and management.

Results Manila Inc., on the other hand, is a customer contact solutions provider for many Fortune 500 companies. They offer call center solutions from IT, telephony, data and reporting to training and center management needs.

Two to three more BPO companies are expected to open offices at The Mactan Newtown this year, said Go.

Due to the growing demand of office spaces and increased interests of their Manila-based tenants to expand operations in Cebu, Go said a second BPO tower called Two World Center will start construction this year.

Two World Center will have a floor area of 7,200 square meters and is expected to house 2,000 more BPO employees.

Office spaces

Go said they will “accelerate the completion of the tower” as they target completion by the fourth quarter this year or first quarter of 2014. “This is a low-rise structure so we don’t see any delays in the completion,” he said.

Go said that in two to three years, more office spaces will be available for lease as 8 Newtown Boulevard and Pacific World Tower will open for business. Both towers will be able to accommodate around 13,000 BPO seats.

The 8 Newtown Boulevard and Pacific World Tower are residential and office towers at The Mactan Newtown.

“In five to seven years, we foresee IT Park development to generate 25,000 employees,” he said.

To “accelerate their going live,” Go said Megaworld will set up job fair booths at One World Center on Wednesday to help their tenants find employees.

Go said they are now in close coordination with various universities in Cebu so these companies can tap into Cebu’s labor market. He said the job fair is not limited to BPO careers as they also invited the recruitment staff of Resorts World Manila and McDonalds.

Property consultants

Megaworld Corp. is also setting up a booth as they look for property consultants for their Cebu projects.

As for the residential component, Geronimo announced they have already sold out the condo units of 8 Newtown Boulevard, while units at One Pacific Residence are already 90 percent sold.

Geronimo said given the strong sales takeup of their residential projects, the firm will launch another condo cluster this first semester.

The four towers of 8 Newtown Boulevard and two towers of One Pacific Residence were all sold to the Japanese market. Go said they involved Philippine Economic Zone Authority and the Philippine Retirement Authority for the seamless business and special resident retiree visa processing to the Japanese retirees.

Geronimo said they will also open opportunities for local buyers in their succeeding projects. They also considered putting up condo towers for the European and Korean markets.