Blue Wave-Marikina, also known as Blue Wave at Marquinton, is a mall and office complex in Marikina City, Metro Manila, developed by Federal Land. It sits on a 2 hectares (4.9 acres) site just off the Sumulong Highway, at the northwest corner of the intersection with Mayor Gil Fernando Avenue.[1]
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The mall is a three-storey structure.[2] It is located near the Marquinton residences, a medium-rise planned residential community which primarily targets families and is said to be the first of its type in Marikina.[2][3] Despite that location, the mall itself targets a younger, upwardly-mobile customer segment, according to FedLand Brent Retail President Edward Tan.[4] It features a four-screen cinema and a Robinsons Supermarket.[4][5]
In August 2008, an armed robbery occurred at the Metrobank branch on the mall's ground floor.[6] By a few days later, three of the five robbers had been caught. Police stated they were part of the Ampang-Colangco gang, which had committed a number of payroll, bank, and armor van robberies in Metro Manila.[7]
Blue Wave-Marikina IT Center is listed as an approved IT Center by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), making export-oriented companies located therein eligible for temporary tax holiday, permanent reduced rate of corporate income tax, and other incentives.[8] Tenants there include the NCO Group, who opened their fourth Philippine call center there in June 2009 with 650 employees.[9][10][11] As of May 2010[update], it is the only FedLand project to have this status, and one of only two in Marikina City (the other being Riverbanks Center).[8] However, PEZA also lists FedLand's Blue Wave-Metropolitan Park project in Pasay City as an "economic zone being developed".[12]
Blue Wave-Marikina is a follow-on project building on the success of FedLand's earlier Blue Wave-Metropolitan Park strip mall project in Pasay City.[4] It opened in August 2005, at a time when there was already a glut of retail space in Metro Manila and vacancy rates were expected to edge as high as 17%; nevertheless, it achieved nearly full occupancy by the month prior to its opening. It was the first new major retail development in Marikina City in over a decade. It formed part of a trend at the time of building smaller district and neighbourhood "niche retail" centers, of around 25,000 square metres (270,000 sq ft) in floor area, in response to the overbuilding of larger shopping malls.[2]