Above And Beyond

The tumultuous ’90s saw property developer Andrew Tan turn an old textile mill complex into the Philippines’ most coveted corporate address. Today, the seasoned Filipino-Chinese tycoon continues to change the game.

- Timothy Bell

Megaworld Corporation, the pioneering mixed-use property developer founded by Filipino-Chinese tycoon Andrew Tan, has thus far created 23 townships and integrated developments in the Philippines. And the tycoon is just warming up.

Tan, whose wide-ranging business interests—from hotels and resorts, to fast food and liquor—are all gathered under holdings company Alliance Global, attributes the lion’s share of his success to his game-changing real estate enterprise, Megaworld Corporation.

As chairman and founder of Megaworld, Tan pioneered mixed-used development in Metro Manila in the 1990s, changing the industry’s landscape and driving the property sector into a rush to build similar all-inclusive townships across the metropolis. Its flagship Eastwood City—a 17-hectare enclave of sleek office towers, modern residential buildings, and commercial structures within Quezon City—bears the DNA of his company’s innovative live-work-play-learn concept, a master plan that incorporates work spaces with residential and recreational facilities.

Eastwood, a former textile mill complex, became the country’s most coveted corporate address when it opened in 1997, providing a springboard for what was then a nascent BPO industry that now employs a million Filipinos and whose total income is projected to hit USD40 billion by 2020.

Such innovation in property development was designed to, among other things, cut home-to-office travel time and increase quality of life in an otherwise dense urban sprawl whose productivity has been hobbled by traffic woes.