McKinley Hill was envisioned to be an all-encompassing towmship, which means almost everything you would expect in a city can be found here. Over the years, McKinley Hill would have a supermarketi, convenience stores, most major banks, courier branch, to name a few.
As such, McKinley Hill was developed as place where your place of stay, study, and work are located within a single area. Last time, we talked about the residential developments; this time, we will talk about the business buildings and schools in the area, among other things.
While not as well-known as other business districts in the metropolis, McKinley Hill is home to a number of known companies like Colgate-Palmolive, Del Monte Foods, HP, Thomson Reuters, Wells Fargo, United Health Group, among others. A number of these companies belong to the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, making this area a thriving township day in and day out despite its location.
Many of the township’s office buildings were built in clusters. There’s the One World Square and the conjoined twin buildings of Two and Three World Square as well as the 8/10 and 18/20 Buildings in between. Located in the southern part are the Science Hub Towers 1 to 4, as well as 1 and 8 Campus Place.
Then there are the institutions which managed to get their own buildings: the Intellectual Property Office has the Intellectual Property Center while the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry has the Commerce and Industry Plaza building.
McKinley Hill also rose as a center of education with the presence of 3 international schools in the area: the Korean International School, the Chinese International School, and the most prominent campus in the area: Enderun Colleges, one of the more prestigious and expensive business and hospitality schools in the country.
Partly due perhaps to its international flavor, McKinley Hill is also the home for some chanceries in the country. There is the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates located in the Commerce and Industry Plaza. There are also the embassies of the Republic of Korea and of the United Kingdom, both of which housed in separate facilities at the eastern end of the township.
At this point, you might think the facilities McKinley lacks are facilities for sports and perhaps an events venue. Well, McKinley Hill has them with the presence of Emperador Stadium which is a football stadium (and a frequent venue of the games of the United Football League) and the events place The Blue Leaf.
MCKINLEY HILL EXPANDS WESTWARD
With so much development going on, at this point McKinley Hill is pretty much fully-occupied with present and future developments in place. And it seems they are not enough. So what does Megaworld do? Why, extend it westward of course.
Thus we now have the next phase of the development of McKinley Hill with McKinley West. Located west of McKinley Hill along Lawton Avenue, this new development used to be the site of the Joint US Military Assistance Group (JUSMAG) complex in the country. Like McKinley Hill, McKinley West would encompass the same elements that has made McKinley Hill a thriving township of its own.
While there is not much activity going on at this time of writing, Megaworld seems to be prepping the area up and get people acquainted with it by building a new access road where westbound vehicles (going towards the direction of the airport and South Luzon Expressway) would use and help alleviate the choke point that is the intersection of Lawton Avenue and Upper McKinley Road which is the main thoroughfare of McKinley Hill.
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If there’s one thing McKinley Hill is lacking and needs to have at this point, it would better accessibility in terms of public transport. As it is right now, the current available public transport out of McKinley Hill is pretty much unreliable especially at rush hour when such options are sorely lacking. It’s also difficult to access public transport along C-5 northbound as there is no nearby pedestrian crossing or even a footbridge to get there. At the very least, there should a reliable and straightforward route to connect McKinley Hill and Bonifacio Global City. (then again, public transportation in Bonifacio Global City is also pretty much awful, but that’s another story)
As someone who has worked in the area for 5 1/2 years, I’m fortunate to have bore witness to many of these developments as they were being built within that timeframe. Looking back, it was astounding to see the township change so much from being new and quite barren to an area bustling with much activity. The completion of the Grand Canal Mall and the replica grand canal with it is surely going to bring in more people to at least visit it. While I will no longer be there to see the constructions going on each day as they progress, it will be interesting nonetheless to see the developments in the coming months and years, at least from a distance.
