Backed by the country’s sustained economic growth, property giant Megaworld remains bullish about expanding its office portfolio across its townships all over the country.

“There is no reason to slow down our office developments. The demand for office spaces in our townships continues to grow and we will continue to build in order to meet our clients’ growing requirements,” says Kevin L. Tan, chief strategy officer, Megaworld.

The company is on-track to be the first developer in the country to reach one million square meters of office space inventory by the end of the year.

As of end-September, the company has already completed 888,500 square meters of office spaces. Another 111,500 square meters of fresh offices will be completed before the end of the year in McKinley Hill, Southwoods City, Davao Park District and Iloilo Business Park.

“Aside from BPOs, we also see growth in traditional offices, as well as back office and support offices, and facilities providers for online gaming operators,” reveals Tan.

To date, around 80,000 square meters of the company’s total office inventory has been leased to Philippine Online Gaming Operators (POGO) that need work spaces for their back office and support operations such as IT and technical support, customer service and financial services. Moreover, facilities providers for online gaming operators are also leasing spaces, allowing them to sub-lease ‘ready offices’ equipped with the required workspace set-up, supplies, furniture and fixtures for these operators.

“We are the first, if not among the first, to see the potential of this segment in office rental. Our expertise in office development allows us to efficiently cater to the needs of POGOs. While only 8% of our total inventory caters to POGOs, we continue to see a bright spot for growth in this segment,” adds Tan.

A few days ago, Megaworld sealed a deal with US-based financial services provider FactSet to build its regional corporate headquarters in the 34.5-hectare McKinley West township in Fort Bonifacio. The P3-B ‘green’ tower is scheduled to be completed by 2020.

At present, Megaworld has built around 50 office towers in Eastwood City in Quezon City; McKinley Hill, McKinley West and Uptown Bonifacio in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig; Southwoods City in Laguna; Newport City in Pasay City; The Mactan Newtown in Cebu; Iloilo Business Park in Iloilo City; and within the Makati Central Business District (CBD).

“We are still continuously developing more townships. This means, more opportunities for us to build more offices in the years to come,” Tan adds.