Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) and Yahoo Inc’s tenancy in Taipei’s Nangang Software Park (南港軟體園區) has sparked interest from local and overseas companies, the manager of the government-owned development says.
“Foreign companies, especially from the US and Japan, are now becoming more interested in this project, helped by having major tenants already here,” said Hoyt Tillman, marketing director for Century Development Corp (世正開發). “It’s becoming a hub for the industry.”
HP, the world’s largest computer maker, officially opened its new Taiwan headquarters on Oct. 11, taking 33,058m2 in Phase III of the Nangang property. Yahoo will take more than 30,000m2 when it moves to the site in December, raising the foreign tenancy in the latest of three buildings in the project to 68 percent, Tillman said.
HP and Yahoo are the biggest tenants in the Nangang Software Park.
HP’s new office will host 1,000 employees from its research and development, sales and procurement divisions, Felix See (施志國), Taiwan managing director of the Palo Alto, California-based company, said at the opening ceremony on Monday. Its previous headquarters in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) had 11,900m2, according to an Oct. 11 press release.
Phase III of the development, which opened last year, has 171,500m2 of office space. Phase I, opened in 1999, has 187,000m2 and Phase II, opened in 2003, has 252,525m2, Tillman said. Combined, the first two phases are 31 percent occupied by foreign tenants.
Yahoo will move “due to the insufficient capacity in our existing office for over 1,000 employees, convenience of management and cost considerations,” Minyi Huang, a Taipei-based spokeswoman for the Sunnyvale, California-based company, said in an e-mailed response to questions.
Nangang Software Park is part of the government’s long-term plan to develop the eastern outskirts of Taipei by luring employers out of the downtown area where rents are higher. Two mass rapid transit lines and an upcoming high-speed rail station add to the transport options for employees at the site.
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council, the government’s trade promotion body and organizer of the Computex Trade Show, opened a new site for its World Trade Center opposite the Nangang Software Park in 2008.
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