Manila-based firm sees growing demand for fitting out services for workspaces

Bam Abiera, deputy managing director of the Manila Commercial Fit-out Corp., sees growing demand of Fit-out services for office spaces in Cebu. | Irene R. Sino Cruz

CEBU CITY, Philippines — A Manila-based firm sees growing demand for building interior workspaces in Cebu.

Bam Abiera, deputy managing director of the Manila Commercial Fit-out Corporation (MCFC), said the rising demand for office spaces from three subsectors would be driving demand for fit out services.

MCFC is one of the leading office builders in Metro Manila.

For this reason, the company had increased its footprint and had become operational in Cebu, Abiera pointed out.

The Manila-based company started operations doing construction projects over 20 years ago.

However, MCFC decided to focus on medium to large office space design and build in 2013 when the management team realized the growing demand for work spaces.

When the company won a major project recently, it decided to set up operations in Cebu.

Abiera noted that based on projections, Cebu would have 1 million sq.m. office spaces which would be available by 2020.

“We’ve always had our eyes set on Cebu and the Visayas, knowing very well the potential as an investment destination.  Opening capacity here made more sense when we were selected to build some 5,000 sq.m. of BPO space, a particular specialty of MCFC,” he said.

According to Abiera, the demand for office spaces would come from companies engaged in business process outsourcing and English as a second language operations.

“Our extensive portfolio of completed projects for both multinational and local offices is a testament to our ability to deliver quality and worry-free projects,” added Abiera.

With companies, they were usually given only two months by building owners to complete interior work, MCTC could ensure that they would complete the work on time without sacrificing quality.

“We expected a few years ago that speed of completion of a project will be a crucial factor and started to set up our own off-site fabrication called Dovetail. This build and install system allows us to start well ahead of the turn-over of the site and has cut 20 percent of the time needed to do a traditional fabricate-on-site process,” Abiera explained./dbs