Udenna wants ‘iconic tower’ built in Clark

DENNIS A. UY-LED Udenna Corp. is taking inspiration from cities like Paris, Chicago, and Singapore for its masterplan for Clark Global City (CGC), which may include the establishment of an “iconic” tower.

“Our masterplanner got five cities in the world, and took the qualities of these five cities,” Wilfredo A. Placino, director for Special Projects at Udenna told reporters in Taguig City last week.

Mr. Placino, who is in charge of Clark Global City Corp., cited the cities of Chicago; Paris; Macau; Singapore, and Incheon in South Korea as the inspiration for the development of the 179.5-hectare project.

“In Incheon, we start with the new airport in Seoul, exactly like Clark. We have the anchor infrastructure which is the airport. In Chicago, they maintain the greens of the city. We’re getting that also,” he said.

“In Paris or Macau, they have an iconic tower. We will put that iconic tower in Clark,” he added, referring to the top tourist attractions — Eiffel Tower and Macau Tower.

The Udenna executive said they are still talking with engineers whether it is possible for this structure to house the airport’s control tower.

Mr. Placino said Clark Global City will be patterned after the mixed-use developments in Singapore, where residential, commercial, and office spaces are all connected.

The Clark property was purchased by the Udenna group only last October by buying out GGDC Holdings, the majority shareholder of Global Gateway Development Corp. Udenna then rebranded it to its present name.

The estate covered 177 hectares at the time of the group’s acquisition, but Mr. Placino noted that they were able to add another 2.5 hectares of adjacent land to the property since. Of the total area, 47 hectares has already been developed by its previous owners.

“We will invite big developers to partake of our masterplan just like what they did here, you see Ayala (Land, Inc.), Megaworld (Corp.). The former owners didn’t do that,” Mr. Placino said.

The development of CGC is expected to take 10 years, with the first phase to start in 2018. This will consist of housing projects to bring more people into the estate.

“We are basically talking to some groups. We want to put up some dormitories initially,” Mr. Placino said.

Mr. Uy’s acquisition of Clark Global City comes as the government develops Clark into the next central business hub outside Metro Manila, in a bid to ease congestion in the Philippine capital.

The government is currently bidding out the contract for the expansion of Clark International Airport, which involves the construction of a new passenger terminal that would increase capacity to 12 million passengers per annum from the current four million. — Arra B. Francia