The state-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) awarded the contract to master plan approximately 36,000 hectares of the Clark Special Economic Zone (CSEZ) to PROS Architects and Engineers Co. in joint venture with Woodfields Consultants Inc (PROS and Woodfields).

BCDA President and CEO Arnel Paciano D. Casanova said the Notice of Award was hand delivered to PROS and Woodfields last Friday (10 August 2012).

Casanova said PROS and Woodfields will be master planning an area half the size of Metro Manila.

“This is the first stage in creating the country’s most modern city,” Casanova said.

Earlier, Casanova said the new master plan for the CSEZ is envisioned to set the pace of socioeconomic development in Central Luzon.

He noted that implementing a comprehensive master development plan will bring out the maximum value, as well as the equitable and inclusive economic benefits to the region.

Casanova added that the master plan will position Clark as the investment destination in Southeast Asia. “Clark will be a beautiful, highly integrated, high-tech, green community where Bonifacio Global City meets Silicon Valley amidst a lush greenery.”

For his part, BCDA Chairman Felicito C. Payumo said the new city that will be built by BCDA in Clark will boost the country’s economy by attracting more investments and more importantly generate thousands of jobs for the Filipinos.

The master plan also involves a development plan that provides for, among others:

• Adoption of a Green Building System that would promote vast array of practices and techniques from architectural design to the construction of the buildings;

• Use of renewable energy in all building and facilities, to be derived from sustaining sources;

• Provision of a clean and affordable public transportation system that would promote usage of cleaner burning fuels;

• Promotion of public health by producing and cultivating locally grown organic foods and provision of adequate access to safe potable drinking water by protecting the ecological integrity of the city’s primary water sources;

• Provision of a state-of-the-art information infrastructure which shall implement a communication/internet network system designed to perform all communications functions;

• Provision of a district to accommodate facilities for the development of cutting-edge technology which shall house laboratories for computer innovations and the platform test bed for high-tech inventions; and

• Protection and maintenance of natural habitats, its corridors and other key habitat characteristics, such as water features, food-bearing plants, shelter for wildlife, native species.

The master plan is expected to be completed in six months.