Real estate giant Megaworld’s rental income is expected to reach P20-billion by 2020, more than doubling its P9-billion recorded rental income in 2015.

In the next three years, the company will be completing close to 1,000,000 square meter of fresh rental inventory, mostly office, lifestyle malls and commercial spaces around its 22 townships and integrated lifestyle communities across the country. This will bring the company’s total rental space inventory to more than 2.5-million square meters by 2020.

“While we remain strong in our residential condominium business, it is also imperative for us to also fortify our rental portfolio. This direction will not only allow us to become a stronger and more sustainable company, but at the same time, we address the increasing demand for these spaces in our various townships,” says Kevin L. Tan, chief strategy officer, Megaworld.

By 2020, Megaworld will have around 1.5 million square meters of expansive office space inventory across the country.

“By the end of this year, we will breach the 1-million square meters of office space inventory as we continue to experience a demand for office spaces,” says Tan.

Currently, Megaworld has over 130 companies in its office rental portolio, occupying around 850,000 square meters of offices spaces, making it the biggest lessor of office spaces in the entire country.

Megaworld offices enjoy a very high occupancy rate of 99%. Pre-leasing rates of its office buildings that are still under construction stand at an average of 80 percent.

“On the commercial side, as population in all of Megaworld townships is expected to also balloon to 1,000,000 by 2020, we expect a tremendous growth in consumer spending especially on food, so we are prepared to address that,” explains Tan.

In the last two years, Megaworld has opened seven (7) new malls and commercial centers last year, namely Uptown Mall, Uptown Parade, Venice Grand Canal Mall, Twin Lakes Shopping Village, Festive Walk Parade, Burgos Park and Eight Forbes Town Road, both in Forbes Town, covering around 300,000.00 square meters of gross floor area.

This year, the company is also expected to open new commercial and retail spaces at The Mactan Newtown, Iloilo Business Park, Southwoods City, Uptown Bonifacio, McKinley West, ArcoVia City and in some of its properties in Makati CBD, covering an additional 200,000.00 square meters of gross floor area.

“We see a continuing rise in consumer spending especially on food. While each of our townships has its own growing population, we have experienced influx of people visiting our townships because our lifestyle malls also become leisure attractions like the Venice Grand Canal,” reveals Kevin L. Tan, senior vice president and head of Megaworld Lifestyle Malls.

By 2020, around 18 new malls and commercial centers in various Megaworld townships all over the country will be completed, covering close to 390,400 square meters of fresh retail spaces. This will bring the company’s total commercial and retail space inventory to 1.17 million square meters covering a total of 30 lifestyle malls & commercial establishments nationwide.