How these campus-type buildings in McKinley Hill are attracting top BPO companies and multinational firms

As the office sector continues to contribute to the country’s economic recovery, experts see the information technology and business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry remaining to be the strongest driver of long-term office demand.

One premier location that has been helping the industry and other top multinational firms thrive amid the pandemic is this campus-type office complex situated within property giant Megaworld’s 50-hectare McKinley Hill township.
Patterned after Silicon Valley, a renowned global center for technology and innovation, the four-building Science Hub has been a gamechanger in office property development for Megaworld.

“This is where we did a complete turnaround in terms of design elements. All Science Hub buildings are merely 10 stories high, which accentuate the campus feel projected from across the main avenue called Campus Avenue,” said Roland Tiongson, first vice president of Megaworld Premier Offices.

More than just a dynamic location
The Science Hub, which features a total gross leasable area of 83,000 sqm, sits across Enderun Colleges and right beside the Venice Grand Canal Mall and Venice Luxury Residences.
This strategic location allows people to experience the celebrated live, work, play and learn features of McKinley Hill—a signature concept of Megaworld’s township developments—with a variety of institutions situated just a few steps from one another.

All four towers of the Science Hub sit on top of an elevated and common courtyard or plaza, which transforms the area into an enclave within a vibrant township address.
“The plaza allows retail kiosks to set up shop in a well-spaced manner and in between plant boxes where employees can sit and relax during breaks or before and after their work hours,” Tiongson explained.
Among the top companies and multinational firms currently based in Science Hub offices include Bayer, Cognizant,

Accenture, and Samsung.
Additionally, the buildings are well set back from the main road (Campus Avenue). This allows for a spacious feel both inside the buildings and outside at the plaza, further enhanced by the presence of both the Enderun campus and the Wells Fargo courtyard right across the Science Hub complex.
Speaking of space, there’s also one expansive integrated parking floor tucked underneath the plaza and the buildings. This allows employees and executives the luxury of parking directly underneath the complex.
It’s all in the details

From using traditional airconditioner units in the past, Megaworld adopted and fully embraced the variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system in Science Hub offices years ago to give tenants better control and selection over the areas they want to cool.

This allowed tenants to save on power costs by eliminating airconditioning charges that were traditionally part of occupancy costs.

It is also in the Science Hub where Megaworld first introduced the use of double-glazed windows in its office buildings. This helped reduce the sunlight, noise and weather susceptibility of office spaces, while allowing tenants to save on energy costs.

“This was one of our first steps in eventually going for the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings, which included double glazed windows as one of its required major design elements,” Tiongson shared.
The concept of having an “aircon ledge” was also implemented to provide greater convenience and accessibility across all Science Hub offices. This portion is where air-cooled condensing units (ACCU) of a particular floor are placed. This eliminated the need to build a separate floor just for mechanical purposes and gave tenants the option to place additional airconditioning units on their respective floors.

Another design concept that Megaworld implemented in the Science Hub was the “side core office space configuration.” Here, the elevator shafts and fire exits were placed on one side of the floor to allow tenants to achieve “open floor layouts,” which is easier to manage especially for BPOs.
This plan allowed the company to fully embrace the 2,000-sqm floor plate in Science Hub, which was the optimal floor size for BPO operations at that time.

The result for all these design elements combined are well-thought-out spaces that pave the way for greater productivity and efficiency among businesses based in the Science Hub, and ultimately in McKinley Hill.
In 2018, McKinley Hill was feted as the “Best Mixed-Use Development in Luzon” at The Outlook Awards by Lamudi Philippines. To date, the township is home to 80,000 employees, and 18 office buildings offering a total GLA of 349,000 sqm. Among them are four LEED-certified developments namely, 8 Campus Place A, B, and C, and the Southeast Asian Campus building.