Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines
Makati CBD Elevated Walkway and Underpass Network
A privately financed network of elevated walks, covered sidewalks and pedestrian underpasses in the Makati Central Business District, begun in 1995. It was planned by Ayala Land and is financed, built and operated by the Makati Commercial Estate Association (MACEA), the district's estate association. Funding comes from a development charge levied on buildings that build above the originally planned density.
Governance
Who owns it, who runs it, what the rules are.
- Owner
- MACEA, the estate association of Makati CBD property owners, is listed as owner of the De la Rosa Elevated Walkway and the pedestrian underpasses. Ayala Land, the district's master developer, planned and designed the network with MACEA. The legal arrangement for structures over or under city streets was not found.
- Operator
- Makati Commercial Estate Association, Inc. (MACEA), which finances, builds, maintains and operates the network.
- Hours
- Not found. No published hours for the elevated walkways or underpasses were located.
- Public right
- The walkways and underpasses are open to the public as part of the district's pedestrian system. No published instrument establishing a public right of passage was found, so access rests on MACEA's operation of private infrastructure.
- Who pays
- MACEA funds construction and upkeep from member fees, principally the development charge on extra density. In 2019 it repaired and repainted the De la Rosa walkway's steel posts and railings and replaced roofing at the Paseo entrance. No Makati City budget contribution was documented.
Legal instruments
- MACEA development charge ↗Special assessment on buildings developed to a higher density than originally planned for the CBD; collected from members and used to fund the walkway network.[01]
Governing bodies
Open issues
- The network continues to expand, most recently with the Paseo-Villar underpass completed in 2021.
- Whether the public holds any legal right of passage over these privately owned structures has not been documented.
Timeline
- First pedestrian underpass opens at Legazpi Street, starting the walkway programme in response to 1990s traffic congestion.[04]
- Original 795-metre De la Rosa Elevated Walkway completed in about this year; MACEA described it as 22 years old in 2019.[02]
- 305-metre extension of the De la Rosa Elevated Walkway inaugurated on 28 November by MACEA and the Makati city mayor.[06]
- De la Rosa extension work completed, bringing the walkway to 1,110 metres.[03]
- MACEA repairs and repaints the De la Rosa walkway and replaces roofing at the Paseo entrance.[02]
- Asian Development Bank case study reports about US$20 million spent on the network since 1995.[01]
- Paseo-Villar underpass, linking Ayala Triangle Gardens to Salcedo Village, completed after construction from 2019.[04]
What it cost · who pays
The story
The Makati Central Business District, master-planned by Ayala Land, has a privately financed pedestrian network of elevated walks, covered sidewalks and underpasses. Work began in 1995 with an underpass at Legazpi Street, a response to the traffic congestion of that decade. By 2019 the network included about two kilometres of elevated walks and four kilometres of covered walks, plus underpasses and two overpasses. It carried about 250,000 people each weekday.
The best-known element is the De la Rosa Elevated Walkway in Legazpi Village. Its original 795-metre section dates from the late 1990s. A 305-metre extension was inaugurated in November 2016 and completed by 2018, bringing it to 1,110 metres, which makes it the longest elevated pedway in the Philippines. It links Greenbelt at Ayala Center with Makati Medical Center and office towers along De la Rosa and Salcedo streets. The underpass programme reached eight crossings with the Paseo-Villar underpass, completed in 2021.
Governance is private. Ayala Land planned the network with Roma Design Group and Ove Arup & Partners. Its estate association, the Makati Commercial Estate Association (MACEA), finances, builds, maintains and operates it. The main funding tool is a development charge on buildings that exceed the district's originally planned density, set at about US$80 per square metre in 2019. Total spending reached about US$20 million by that year.
The Asian Development Bank presents the model as a business district paying for its own pedestrian infrastructure through member fees. The same arrangement means access depends on a private association rather than a public right of way. No published hours policy, public-passage instrument or city maintenance contribution was found for this record. Ortigas Center, another Metro Manila business district, was requested as a comparison but could not be researched.
Questions people ask
Who owns the elevated walkways in Makati?
How are Makati's walkways paid for?
How long is the De la Rosa Elevated Walkway?
How many people use Makati's walkways?
Sources
- Transforming a Business District into Walkable Space with Private Financing — Development Asia, Asian Development Bank (2019)
- Elevated Pedestrian Walkway — Makati Commercial Estate Association (2019)primary
- De la Rosa Elevated Walkway — Wikipedia (2025)
- Makati pedestrian underpasses — Wikipedia (2025)
- Makati Central Business District — Wikipedia (2025)
- Binay, MaCEA inaugurate Makati CBD's extended elevated walkway — Philippine Daily Inquirer (2016)
About this record
Confidence medium · reviewed 2026-10-19. The session's shared web-search budget ran out before this record, so it rests on direct fetches of the ADB case study, a MACEA page and Wikipedia. MACEA's about and services pages returned rate-limit errors, so its founding year, legal form and walkway hours are not confirmed. MACEA's own site header reads 'Makati Central Estate Association', while other sources use 'Makati Commercial Estate Association'; verify the current legal name. The 1997 date for the original De la Rosa walkway is inferred from MACEA describing it as 22 years old in 2019. The ADB case study counted 7 underpasses complete and an eighth under construction in 2019; Wikipedia lists 8. The Inquirer article on the 2016 extension was cited by Wikipedia but blocked fetching. Ortigas Center's elevated walkways were requested as a mention but Wikipedia's Ortigas Center article does not cover them and no other source could be reached; they need their own research. Not found: the legal basis for structures over and under city streets, any Makati City ordinance, hours, and maintenance budgets.
Map geometry: 87 corridor features, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), as of 2026-10-20. Levels come from OpenStreetMap tags and can be incomplete.
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