RoWed out

Word has it that a well-established corporation with deep roots in the southern part of the metropolis is quietly packing up its principal office and heading for greener (and much sleeker) pastures.

For years, the company has called home a busy stretch of East Service Road in Parañaque, that industrialized corridor hugging the SLEX, specifically the section near Marian Road 2 in San Martin de Porres. Logistics, warehouses, and corporate addresses have long thrived there. But not for much longer.

The culprit, according to Nosy Tarsee, is the government’s aggressive push for a massive north-south railway project currently carving its way through the very same corridor.

Right-of-way (RoW) acquisitions, utility relocations, and expropriation notices have turned the area into a construction zone, forcing several businesses to relocate.

The giant food retailer is apparently among those being nudged, or compensated, out.

It’s a blessing in disguise as the company is moving to a sleeker address in Taguig. Think sustainable design, LEED aspirations, hospital-grade air filtration, and a location inside one of Metro Manila’s hottest new mixed-use developments, built on the former Food Terminal Inc. site.

The same railway project that is displacing them from Parañaque is ironically helping to transform their new neighborhood into a transit-oriented business hub.

To make it all official, the food firm’s board recently held a remote meeting and is now fast-tracking the necessary amendments to its Articles of Incorporation.

The relocation was Metro Manila’s transformation in miniature: old industrial corridors razed for rail lines, shiny new districts rising just kilometers away, ready to welcome the displaced.

So which mystery corporation is trading Parañaque’s service road for Taguig’s Pulse Street? That’s a question worth a good toss.