16 DECEMBER 2021 – The Makati Commerce Tower, a Grade A, LEED Gold-certified office development along Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue, is now structurally complete with construction reaching its 36th and highest level. This event marks a significant milestone in Metro Manila’s office market as it further underpins the importance of sustainability and wellness in building office towers of the future. The building will become a landmark for innovation and sustainability when it officially welcomes its first tenants in the third quarter of 2022.

Lyndon Lim, Principal at BPEA Real Estate, parent company of developer Empresas Diesel Development Inc., said: “This next-generation Grade A office building will set a new benchmark in terms of what occupiers can expect from their office space in the Philippines. BPEA Real Estate and the entire team behind this outstanding project have put careful thought and planning into the design and execution to future-proof this development with market leading sustainability, health and wellness features.”

One of the few high-profile Makati commercial buildings to be completed in 2022, Makati Commerce Tower incorporated wellness features into the design and concept of the building from the very outset, said Malcolm Lai, Managing Director of BPEA Real Estate.

“On par with some of the most noteworthy developments in the region, this building is designed to have ‘column-free’ floor plans that will give occupiers much needed flexibility to configure their office spaces, alongside innovative wellness features – an important consideration as people increasingly return to offices following the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Having already achieved LEED Gold, the Makati Commerce Tower is targeting LEED Platinum certification upon completion and has already met international ASHRAE standards. These certifications will ensure that tenants of the building will be kept safe and healthy with its enhanced indoor air quality.

Features and amenities that future-proof office design

The Makati Commerce Tower will have a total of 25 floors of office spaces for lease, two floors with retail units, and a dedicated food court. It will also have eight podium parking levels and two basement parking levels, with a total of 784 parking slots.

Some of the building’s sustainability and wellness features include touchless access all the way from the car park to the office floors, destination-control elevator access, state-of-the-art IT and back-up power infrastructure to better serve IT-BPO tenants, bicycle parking, and charging ports for electric vehicles.

In keeping with its sustainable features, the Makati Commerce Tower will also boast ultraviolet (UV) systems to sanitize indoor air quality, energy-saving features that will help tenants save approximately 22% on electricity consumption, and double-glazed, Low-E glass façade to minimize heat in indoor spaces while allowing more natural light to come in. The base of the building will feature a 10-storey-high living green wall to emphasize its green features while supporting the local air quality.

According to Stephen Jones, director at global architectural firm Woods Bagot, the concepts behind the design of the Makati Commerce Tower took into account sustainability and high-tech aspects of the intended Grade A office development, especially as the building was conceptualized with business process outsourcing (BPO) companies in mind as occupants.

Meanwhile, Colliers’ Associate Director and Head of Research, Joey Roi Bondoc, said that similar to other office markets in the Asia–Pacific region, demand profiles are changing among tenants in the Philippines. “Companies are looking for sustainable and healthy work environments that will provide confidence for their employees to return to workplaces.”

The Makati Commerce Tower reached its structural top last November 25, 2021. Construction of the building is scheduled to complete in the third quarter of 2022, adding more than a third of the approximately 146,000 square meters of new office supply that will be delivered in Makati in 2022.