BY MID 2010: Newly opened I.T. bldg expects 100% occupancy

CEBU, Philippines - TG Universal (TGU), one of the newest buildings that opened at the Cebu Asiatown IT Park, expects to be 100 percent occupied by middle of this year.

Shortly after it soft opened last year, TGU attracted 20 occupants, that filled in the 16-story structure developed by Business Ventures Corporation.

The company’s chief operating officer Charles Ong said that aside from those who expressed interest to locate at the building, the existing companies now occupying office spaces in the building are also expanding.

To date, big names in the IT sector have made their office-base at TGU building, these include; IBM Global Delivery Center, Bombardier Transportation (Shared Services) Philippines Inc., Xlibris Philippines Inc., Windward Software Philippines Inc., Playtech—Bingames Limited, eBusiness BPO Inc., Next2Web, Taylor Science and Technology Philippines Inc., among others.

According to Ong, TGU which is the largest building in terms of gross floor area within the cyberpark, is expected to be fully occupied by the middle of this year.

Business Ventures Corporation, which is also the developer of Sykes building in Mabolo, spent more than P700 million for the construction of the state-of-the-art IT building, to take advantage of the strong demand for BPO spaces in Cebu.

Ong, whose family core business is into real estate (apartment rentals, warehousing), said that the family decided to diversify its business to building development targeting the BPO investors because of the good prospect for this kind of development.

For this reason, the company has decided to focus on investing its money on the real estate trade in Cebu, with the establishment of a new brand, called “Innoland” which allocates close to a billion pesos capital expenditure (capex) for this year, to build three more sophisticated buildings within the metropolis.

Ong described one of its upcoming projects as an internationally-accredited “Green Building” that will put Cebu in another dimension of attracting investors that are looking for environment friendly structures.

The first project that will be started by the company in the next couple of months will be located in a 3,000 square-meter lot at the Asia Town IT Park. However, the group has not divulged the full description of the nature of project.

Innoland has done extensive research and feasibility study for Cebu real estate sector. “The market is different now—sophisticated, tech-savvy, well informed, and conscious of the environment,” Ong said.

Thus, the company’s line of projects will incorporate the different and sophisticated needs of today’s market. --- Ehda M. Dagooc