HOMEGROWN Oakridge Realty Development Corp. (ORDC) remains bullish on Cebu’s office sector as it unveiled its third office building in Oakridge Business Park.
Dubbed as the newest Grade A building, Oakridge IT Center (OITC) 3 adds another 14,000 square meters (sq.m) of leasable space to Oakridge’s office portfolio. The 12-story building features top-of-the-line fixtures, amenities and technological systems, as well as a three-level podium parking.
The office tower is also poised to be a Philippine Economic Zone Authority-accredited building that will cater to both foreign and local business establishments.
OITC 3 was unveiled on Friday, July 12, 2019.
ORDC chief executive officer Edmun Liu, in a press conference, said the company will remain bullish in growing its real estate investments in Cebu.
“We have certain projects in the pipeline that we will be developing outside of Oakridge Business Park. It will still be in the province of Cebu because we still believe in Cebu and there’s still a tremendous future here,” said Liu.
More projects
Liu said they plan to venture into industrial and residential projects in the future.
“What we would like to focus on is making it different from the usual residential projects out there. Again, it’s very good that we have a lot of projects here in Cebu and perhaps, there is a niche that Oakridge can fill for the more discerning residential homeowners,” he said.
Meanwhile, after completing OITC 3, Liu said they will rehabilitate Oakridge’s first office tower which they target to re open by the last quarter of 2019.
“We opted to beautify it, make it updated and relevant to the times. A lot of the spaces there are already taken by certain tenants,” he said.
Outsourcing and offshore gaming companies continue to account for the bulk of office space demand in Cebu, according to property research firm Colliers International Philippines.
Colliers recommended that developers should be strategic with their office projects.
“We encourage them to provide flexible office cuts to English language centers and explore parcels of developable land around the proposed infrastructure projects which form part of the government’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ push,” said Colliers.
Aside from outsourcing and offshore gaming companies, the firm identified the English as a Second Language (ESL) tutorial segment as a sector with significant potential to become a key office demand driver.
Office inventory
Metro Cebu has breached the one million sq.m mark in terms of leasable office space.
In 2018, Metro Cebu’s office stock reached 1,051,100 sq.m, nine percent higher than the 970,000 sq.m recorded in 2017. About 82,500 sq.m of new office supply was delivered in 2018.
From 2019 to 2021, Colliers projects the completion of 453,700 sq.m of new office supply, which is 62 percent higher than the annual average from 2016 to 2018. (JOB with KOC)