BGC develops office space for millennials

Property developer Ayala Land Inc. has expanded its shared office network, when it teamed up with Fort Bonifacio Development Corp. to launch Clock-In at the High Street, the first coworking space at Bonifacio High Street.

Coworking or shared office involves a shared working environment that provides entrepreneurs, startups and millennial freelancers an opportunity to grow their business without spending too much on office rent in a commercial business district. Tenants get a premium business address, small offices or even desks and meeting rooms for a fraction of the usual rent.

Located at the 3rd level of C2 Building at Bonifacio High Street Central, the 1,400-square-meter Clock-In at the High Street is positioned as the “Start-Up Hub” in Bonifacio Global City.

“We’re the first to set-up co-working space along Bonifacio High Street. We’ve toured a lot of start-ups in this location. When it comes to BGC, there are a lot of co-working areas, but this [Clock-In] is a space where start-up companies are very much welcome. We’re giving this space especially to SMEs and start-ups that cannot afford yet to have their own private space,” said FBDC assistant manager for business development Christine Novera.

FBDC is the master planner and a member of BGC. It operates buildings, headquarters and retail establishments in the area such as the 1-kilometer Bonifacio High Street.

“We are diversifying our portfolio and answering the call of the underserved market which are more of the SMEs and the startups who cannot really get into the game of getting one whole floor from our usual leasing operations,” Novera said.

FBDC is also the developer of Square One, another co-working space that caters to an upper-scale market such as the likes of Zalora and other multinational firms. It has merged Ayala’s Clock-In and its own brand to create a new niche of co-working space specifically for small businesses.

In combining both brands, FBDC noted that the wider the network is, the more efficient and more impactful the solutions are.

“And that is also one of the reasons why we partnered with Ayala because the Clock-In brand is actually expanding into a wider network as well as Square One, and BGC wants to tap into that network so that we can offer more impactful solutions,” Novera said.

Clock-In High Street is the biggest so far with about 1,400 square meters of combined work stations,  small offices, meeting rooms, individual desks and adaptable open spaces for ambulant and long-term clients. It can accommodate as many as 300 individuals at any given time.

The first Clock-In site opened in March 2017 at the penthouse of the Makati Stock Exchange and it was followed by a second site at Bonifacio Technology Center.

“Partnering with FBDC gives so much more value to our members or future tenants, to give them the benefit of passport access to BGC and Makati and to all our other Clock-In locations in the future. We started our first co-work space in Bonifacio and the main market there would be the start-ups and then we’re thinking BGC and High Street is where everything happens and we want to be in there so that’s the main reason why we wanted to be here in High Street,” said Ayala Land head of project development Patricia Gail Samaniego.

“We really wanted to embrace the passionate minds of the creative types as you can see around this area,” said Samaniego.

Ayala Land is looking forward to developing a homegrown co-working brand, bringing the country’s SMEs into the fold of more popular brands.

“We want to be the industry leader and that will be the long-term vision of the brand. Though we know it will not happen over time, when we were deciding this business model, we looked up to established co-working brands and we looked at what the local start-ups would be. We feel even the start-ups, the free lancers, the small companies deserve an equally primed space as much as the bigger corporations deserve a prime address,” Samaniego said.

In 2018, the brand is rolling out another three Clock-In sites in the Makati CBD, Ortigas CBD and Vertis North in Quezon City.

“We’re more playful because we basically adapt to what is the character of this place.  For example High Street is more playful, fun. We adopt that vibe. When it comes to Makati Stock Exchange, it’s more corporate. The co-working spaces should jive with the character of the place. That’s how we design the places,” Samaniego said.

Clock-In is an all-Filipino venture in co-working space. The Ayala-owned brand is open to partnership with other brands in the co-working space, the same principle it applied to having FBDC on board for the High Street site.

The partnership with ALI for Clock-In High Street is an attempt to widen FBDC’s network of co-working spaces as demand for the service is expected to grow dramatically over the next few years.

“One of the things that set us apart from the other co-working space is that we know we have very nice event venues. It’s one of the things that we learned in operating the first clock in site in BGC at the Bonifacio Tech. There were a lot of takers when if comes to event venues.They wanted a space of their own for their company workshops, events, product launches. They wanted a more playful space. There are a lot of events here in BGC but there’s nothing like the first Clock-In at Bonifacio Tech,” Samaniego said.

Clients who rent offices at Clock-in in High Street enjoy extra perks like free meeting room and hot desk every month. They also get a Clock-in passport, a members-only perk that entitles them to 10 free hot desk passes per month to the Bonifacio Technology Center and Makati Stock Exchange branches.

Clients are also treated to exclusive sessions of “LifeHacks by Clock-In,” a TED Talks-like learning session where industry experts share powerful and inspiring ideas on business, tech, creativity and related topics. 

As more co-working brands populate Metro Manila, both Ayala Land and FBDC recognize the need to innovate as the competition shifts to high-gear and clients become more demanding.