By Arra B. Francia, Reporter

MEGAWORLD Corp. unveiled on Wednesday its new multibillion corporate headquarters located in its P65-billlion Uptown Bonifacio township in Taguig City. 

The Alliance Global Tower, a 30-storey green building that sits inside Megaworld’s 16-hectare township, will be home to over 3,500 employees from Megaworld, Global-Estate Resorts, Inc. (GERI), Empire East Land Holdings, Inc. as well as other affiliates. The tower covers 53,248 square meters (sq.m.) of office space and is directly connected to Uptown Mall.

“Our Uptown development is really coming in to full swing, so I think now is the best time more than ever to (transfer). Plus our company is growing quite fast… Our work force, employees are growing, so we thought it was really the best time to consolidate our operations in this one tower,” Megaworld Senior Vice-President for Commercial Division Kevin Andrew L. Tan told reporters at the sidelines of the tower’s unveiling ceremony

The tower features over 100 conference and meeting rooms for its employees, a pantry on each floor, a dining area called the Great Hall, as well as a VIP Lounge on the roof deck. Each floor spans more than 2,000 sq.m. in size. The Chairman’s Boardroom located on the 18th floor can accommodate up to 54 people, and has direct access to a 300-sq.m. Skygarden.

The building is also LEED-certified, which indicates that it is designed to be efficient in energy consumption and uses non-to-low toxic green cleaning products, among others.

Megaworld Senior Vice-President for Business Development and Leasing Jericho P. Go noted only 50% of employees have so far moved into the new building, as some interior designs have yet to be finished.

“We are doing it in phases. The first to move in is Megaworld, and then affiliated companies such as GERI has already moved in. And then later on other subsidiaries will start moving in as well,” Mr. Go said.

The Alliance Global Tower is one of four buildings that Megaworld has completed inside Uptown Bonifacio. A fifth tower, World Commerce Center, is currently under development and will be completed by 2018, while the three completed buildings are being leased out to other companies. 

“We’ve finished four towers, on top of the mall. We’re constructing now our fifth tower. We’re also constructing five residential towers, and we’re turning over one already by the end of the year. That’s One Uptown Residences. It’s going to be connected to our shopping mall,” Mr. Tan said.

Mr. Tan said the company is also planning to build a sixth tower, noting Megaworld’s land bank is still large in the area which leaves room for future developments.

“We allotted P65 billion for 10 years… We started four years ago, siguro mga 30% pa lang ’yan. We still have a long way to go. We still have a lot of land bank on this side of Uptown Bonifacio. We have some plans already to build more offices,” Mr. Tan added.

Megaworld booked a net income attributable to the parent of P6.4 billion for the first half of 2017, 10.8% higher than earnings in the same period a year ago. Revenues meanwhile stood at P23.24 billion in the January to June period.

Shares in Megaworld showed a 1.57% uptick on Wednesday, adding eight centavos to close at P5.18 apiece.

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