Located in La Rinconada El Salto, in the province of Huechuraba next to the new Financial District of Santiago, Ciudad Empresarial is the largest business park in Chile. “The concept for the business park came together in 1995,” explains Project Director, Benjamin Labra. “At the heart of this concept was a vision to create a neighbourhood of offices, residential space and retail services, the integration of which would become a milestone moment for Santiago and Chile as a whole.”
It is Ciudad Empresarial’s goal to be recognised as representing the best Chilean business community and an urban icon capable of integrating infrastructure, innovation, service and natural beauty, all with the aim of being seen as a fantastic place to work and one that appeals to professional leaders and businesses from all walks of life.
To this end the business park is already well on its way to achieving its targets with more than 300,000 square metres of area built, in which 600 different companies are already taking residence there, meaning approximately 30,000 people today call the business park their working home. “Ciudad Empresarial has grown in such a successful way that it can now be considered to be the principle location for offices in Santiago,” Labra continues. “Across the complex there are currently 60 office buildings and 30 percent of the companies within them are multi-national, including the likes of Walmart, Kimberly-Clark, Xerox, Oracle and CNN Chile to name a few.”
So just what is it that has attracted such elite businesses and organisations to the business park? In truth it is a combination of factors and these include the fact that it offers the best price rates within the region and the excellent levels of connectivity it shares Santiago’s other important locations. The business park also take pride in its efficient modern building design, which call for a maximum of six stories per block, its use of innovative technologies and the fact that the complex’s extensive green areas provide an ideal quality of life in a setting boasting a unique landscape.
“Historically the area around us was under developed with relatively high levels of poverty,” states Corporate Communications and Digital Business Manager, Oscar Lazcano. “However, since we established operations here the area has witnessed sustained growth in terms of infrastructure and employment opportunities. We began by purchasing 50 hectares of land and in time we transformed not only this land but the face of the entire neighbourhood, turning it into one of the Chile’s most important business centres.”
It is not only businesses that are benefitting from the efforts of Ciudad Empresarial. Today there are more than 1,750 families, roughly 7,000 people, residing in the surrounding area. These families are themselves now reaping the rewards of the positive changes occurring around them, with almost a quarter of men and women in the community currently working on this project. Other benefits on offer include improvements to the local area such as the creation and distribution of car parking areas, from which Ciudad Empresarial now provides more than 2,000 parking spaces for both residents and visitors to the complex.
A part of Ciudad Empresarial’s long-term goal for the business park has also been to ensure it possess the very best levels of connectivity with Santiago. This approach has seen it become a key participant in two major transportation and infrastructure projects.
“The first of these projects is the Vespucio Oriente highway concession,” Lazcano says, “the construction of which completes one of the important ring roads around Santiago. The second project is the Bicentennial Cable Car system, an undertaking deemed a project of public interest by Chile’s transportation ministry. The system, expected to be completed in 2016, will connect the business park to Santiago’s central business district in the municipality of Providencia in just eleven minutes, transporting up to 7,000 people per hour.”
Ciudad Empresarial’s mission from day one has been to establish itself as property managers of a business park offering the market the best choice in terms of price and quality, and one capable of meeting the differing needs of its customers. While customer satisfaction surveys highlight that as much as 85 percent of workers at the park are grateful to be employed there, the company continues to strive forward in making it an even better place for employees and residents.
“In 2013 we augmented three intelligent environment prototypes, the first in partnership with Endesa Group and Chilectra,” Labra highlights. “These prototypes are helping to provide technical solutions to issues such as the saving of electricity, the use of efficient illumination and the control of camera systems, as well as delivering free Wi-Fi to the people working at the business park. Meanwhile, on the outside, we also spent last year working on a detailed reforestation project in partnership with the Environment Ministry planting some 3,500 different native and exotic species of tree in the surrounding area.”
With so much progress already made by Ciudad Empresarial it can be easy to forget that it has a lot of work left to complete on the business park and its surrounding areas. Indeed, with close to 50 percent of the project now complete it expects to be at work for at least another 20 years before its job here is done.
“The estimated investment for 2014 currently stands at $100 million and includes the building of five new office buildings across around 95,000 square metres of construction area,” Labra says. “Following that we will continue to look at opportunities to add both offices and further retail and commerce space for the delivery of vital services, from supermarkets to health clinics.”
“Ciudad Empresarial is a principle player within Chile and much like the real estate sector in the country we continue to experience exponential growth of our own,” Labra concludes. “This growth is also a result of the fact that more and more leaders of multi-national companies, the likes of DHL and Energizer for example, are starting to recognise and appreciate our concept and business model, and in turn they are quickly finding out that this business park represents the best place to base their operations.”
Written by Will Daynes, research by David Brogan and Milton Santander
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