When I first reported for duty at the DFA, there really weren’t many happenin’ places around the Home Office. Seriously, if you wanted to eat out but couldn’t go far, your choices were limited to a McDonald’s down the block and the microwavable siomai at Mini-Stop.
Sometime during our cadetship, however, construction began on a commercial structure right across the Home Office that raised our collective spirits. The “On this Site will Rise” sign visible from our classroom window promised “44,000 square meters of fantastic retail experience, complete with All-You-Can-Drink Grand Opening, breathtaking lights, great shopping and dining, thousands of tiangge and night market stalls, and non-stop entertainment.” They also said they'd build classy twenty-storey condos on the lot but, really, they had us at All-You-Can-Drink.
Imagine, then, everyone’s disappointment when the whole place became an edifice to epic fail.
Where to begin? How about the fact that the place scheduled its launch almost the same month as the opening of this store you may have heard of - Mall of Asia? Or how about that fact that any commercial area built in front of the Home Office will be just two minutes away from, I don’t know, a brand new MALL OF FREAKIN’ ASIA?
(Great job, Developer's market research department!)
Things might have turned out better if the Developer just made up its mind between Cutting-and-Running and Screw-it-Build-It-and-They-will-Come. No, the developer seemed to half-ass the whole thing, so the project went from this artist's rendition. . .
Sometime during our cadetship, however, construction began on a commercial structure right across the Home Office that raised our collective spirits. The “On this Site will Rise” sign visible from our classroom window promised “44,000 square meters of fantastic retail experience, complete with All-You-Can-Drink Grand Opening, breathtaking lights, great shopping and dining, thousands of tiangge and night market stalls, and non-stop entertainment.” They also said they'd build classy twenty-storey condos on the lot but, really, they had us at All-You-Can-Drink.
Imagine, then, everyone’s disappointment when the whole place became an edifice to epic fail.
Where to begin? How about the fact that the place scheduled its launch almost the same month as the opening of this store you may have heard of - Mall of Asia? Or how about that fact that any commercial area built in front of the Home Office will be just two minutes away from, I don’t know, a brand new MALL OF FREAKIN’ ASIA?
(Great job, Developer's market research department!)
Things might have turned out better if the Developer just made up its mind between Cutting-and-Running and Screw-it-Build-It-and-They-will-Come. No, the developer seemed to half-ass the whole thing, so the project went from this artist's rendition. . .
. . .to the stark reality. . .
(I imagine the conversation between the Developer and the Building Contractor went something like:
Developer: "Some tents, a 44,000 square meter roof, and we're golden"
Contractor: "How about some paint, and interior walls maybe?"
Developer: "Well now you're just talking crazy"
Incidentally, I know artists' renditions take creative liberties, but wouldn't all those buildings drawn in the background have to be constructed right smack in the middle of Manila Bay? Parking might be a problem, no?)
To be fair, the place in its early days seemed to have a plan and even managed to lan
d a couple of reputable tenants. An amusingly named "anchor" shopping center was opened with hopes of drawing people in with the widest selection of...um...knockoffs. Jollibee, Chowking, Max’s and Chicken Bacolod also set up shop, no doubt to take advantage of – as the place’s website put it – “the Department of Foreign Affairs where thousands of people visit everyday to secure their passports, visas and other foreign documents.”
(Yes. That’s what we do. The Home Office. Of the Philippines. Issue visas and other foreign documents. To Filipinos. Thousands of them.)
(And, BTW, those thousands of people? They all go through the Home Office from the OTHER SIDE of building, the side going AWAY from the commercial center. Just thought the marketing research department should know.)
Just as quickly, all those franchises shut their doors and pulled out. Now that’s saying a lot, because have you ever heard of a Jollibee closing down? Me neither.
To be fair, the place in its early days seemed to have a plan and even managed to lan
d a couple of reputable tenants. An amusingly named "anchor" shopping center was opened with hopes of drawing people in with the widest selection of...um...knockoffs. Jollibee, Chowking, Max’s and Chicken Bacolod also set up shop, no doubt to take advantage of – as the place’s website put it – “the Department of Foreign Affairs where thousands of people visit everyday to secure their passports, visas and other foreign documents.”(Yes. That’s what we do. The Home Office. Of the Philippines. Issue visas and other foreign documents. To Filipinos. Thousands of them.)
(And, BTW, those thousands of people? They all go through the Home Office from the OTHER SIDE of building, the side going AWAY from the commercial center. Just thought the marketing research department should know.)
Just as quickly, all those franchises shut their doors and pulled out. Now that’s saying a lot, because have you ever heard of a Jollibee closing down? Me neither.
It's not like the people at the Home Office didn’t patronize the establishments. Believe me, we did. But, apart from the abovementioned blunders, the developer simply did too many things that tempted the shopping gods. Bad karmall, if you will.
First, an SSS office was supposed to be built on-site. This would have been a good public service and guaranteed a steady stream of foot traffic (aside from those thousands of foreign document wielding Filipinos, of course). For whatever reason, however, the SSS office never opened, and in its place they put up…
...that’s right, Karaoke baby! (and from what I’ve heard from our Protocol people, overpriced Karaoke at that)
Second, the developer ringed the area with streetlamps so gaudy they would make German Moreno blush. I even took to naming those bad boys…
Second, the developer ringed the area with streetlamps so gaudy they would make German Moreno blush. I even took to naming those bad boys…
..."The Standard Chartered"...
..."Effeminate Jenga"...
..."Pinhead from 'Hellraiser.' "
(I swear, those lights were put near the DFA to help our diplomats find their way home in a storm)
Last, and most egregious, the developer hinted to – nay, teased! – half the Home Office that the place would house the restaurant franchise to end all restaurant franchises…
Last, and most egregious, the developer hinted to – nay, teased! – half the Home Office that the place would house the restaurant franchise to end all restaurant franchises…
Alas, what actually opened bore the same name, served the same wings, and used the same shorts, but everyone could tell, even from afar…dem ”Hooters” ain't real.
(Moment of silence)
Today, the complex is mostly a shell. Oh sure, there’s a Goodah! around, even a large handicraft store and a used car lot. But for the most part, the complex still looks like a place you’d house a thousand badminton courts. Or NFA rice.
Yet everyone at the Home Office still roots for the place’s eventual success. For every time diplomats pass it during lunchbreak it is said: There but for the grace of Henry Sy go we.
(Moment of silence)
Today, the complex is mostly a shell. Oh sure, there’s a Goodah! around, even a large handicraft store and a used car lot. But for the most part, the complex still looks like a place you’d house a thousand badminton courts. Or NFA rice.
Yet everyone at the Home Office still roots for the place’s eventual success. For every time diplomats pass it during lunchbreak it is said: There but for the grace of Henry Sy go we.
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