Camarines Sur's local government launched CamSur Uptown on August 28. Governor Luis Villafuerte Jr. opened the ceremonies with a look at what the province is planning to build.

What's Being Built

The project is a 250-hectare master-planned township near Naga Airport, along the central Bicol transport corridor. Plans call for a digital campus, PEZA-eligible economic zones, mixed-use commercial buildings, a mall, hotels, resorts, and a hospital.

The Provincial Capitol Building, already under construction on site, is meant to serve as the development's administrative center. Its design draws on the pili nut, a crop closely associated with the region, tying the building's look to local identity.

Camarines Sur isn't the only province making this kind of move. Pax Silica is working to position Central Luzon as a hub for AI-related industries. CamSur Uptown reads as Camarines Sur's own attempt to carve out a similar identity in business and technology.

Timing Is Critical to the Growth Story

Provincial office demand nationally is not having an easy year. In the first half of 2026, provincial markets accounted for only 17% of national office take-up, about 84,000 sqm, equal to just 53% of what those markets absorbed in the first half of 2025. Much of that decline traces back to weaker IT-BPM activity outside Metro Manila.

That slowdown is real, but it argues for being selective about which provincial projects to watch, not for dismissing CamSur Uptown outright. Established hubs are still leasing space, just at a slower pace:

Cebu: 31,100 sqm of first-half take-up
Iloilo: 21,700 sqm
Clark: 19,900 sqm

Cebu also has 174,000 sqm of new supply coming over the next three years, which will add competition for demand that hasn't fully bounced back. Even so, CamSur Uptown enters a market where Global Capability Centers are still the largest source of active requirements: 88,000 sqm out of a national pipeline of 353,000 sqm, compared to 67,000 sqm for third-party outsourcers.

CamSur Uptown is also being built with PEZA eligibility, modern infrastructure, and contiguous space already factored into the plan, something older provincial parks, and increasingly Metro Manila itself, can't easily offer. In Metro Manila, large occupiers already have trouble finding PEZA-accredited buildings with enough contiguous space. BGC, still the most sought-after address for big requirements, has only five qualifying buildings, with a combined 43,000 sqm available. That kind of scarcity in Metro Manila is, over time, the sort of constraint that makes provincial markets a more realistic option for occupiers who need scale.

The Bigger Picture

CamSur Uptown fits into a wider pattern of growth following new infrastructure outside the traditional core markets, similar to what's happening in Cavite, Laguna, Bulacan, Pampanga, and the Clark-Subic-Manila-Batangas corridor. Bicol doesn't have that same scale of activity yet, but an airport currently being expanded, an existing highway network, and a provincial government willing to build its own capitol within the estate are reasonable starting conditions.

CamSur Uptown also isn't starting from zero in terms of demand. Naga and Legazpi already have some BPO locators operating in the area, and the plan is to bring that activity together under one master-planned estate. On the talent side, schools like Ateneo de Naga and the Central Bicol State University of Agriculture (CBSUA) offer a local labor pool, along with the kind of cost advantages that matter to occupiers weighing where to expand.

Our Honest Read

CamSur Uptown is a long-term project. It won't show up in next year's take-up figures, and its outcome will depend on execution: whether the digital campus and PEZA zones can attract anchor tenants, and whether the "Tier-2 Next Wave City" label ends up meaning something in practice. Getting that right is now up to the local government of Camarines Sur.

The broader opportunity still favors this kind of bet. India currently has more than 2,000 Global Capability Centers; the Philippines has around 200. That gap represents years of potential growth that projects like CamSur Uptown are positioning to capture.

For anyone looking five to ten years ahead at where South Luzon's next business district might take shape, CamSur Uptown is worth tracking now, while the project is still early and positioning still has room to move.

Edward Gador is Associate Director for Commercial Leasing at Leechiu Property Consultants. This piece originally appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on September 12, 2026.