RESIDENTIAL MARKET
CityLife@Tampines over 3 times subscribed
The latest executive condominium (EC) to hit the market - CityLife@ Tampines - was more than three times subscribed at the close of its e-applications period yesterday.
Billed as "Singapore's first luxury hotel-style EC", the 514-unit project by Tampines EC Pte Ltd - a consortium comprising Amara Holdings, Kay Lim Holdings and SingXpress Land - received about 1,800 applications, making it the most popular EC by application numbers.
Units that drew the most interest were the dual-key and larger-sized units. In particular, the 4,349 square foot presidential penthouse suite attracted a large number of multi-generation families.
Albert Teo, chief executive officer of Amara Holdings Ltd, speaking on behalf of the consortium, said: "We thank all interested buyers for the overwhelming response, especially in the month of December, which is when a large number of people are holidaying overseas and engaging in festive celebrations.
The strong response is a reflection of EC home buyers taking to the luxury hotel- style home concept."
Sited next to another EC project, The Tampines Trilliant, CityLife@Tampines will have an infinity pool and "skysuite" and penthouse units.
Marketing brochures list the two-bedroom units as ranging in size from 753 to 807 sq ft; the penthouses range from 1,356 to 4,370 sq ft.
CityLife@Tampines will hold a preview of its show suites along Tampines Avenue 7 on Dec 26 and 27.
It opens for booking on Dec 29.
Source: Business Times –6 December 2012
COMMERCIAL MARKET
RB Capital buys 16 retail units at The Quayside for $69m
RB Capital is buying 16 ground-floor riverfronting retail units comprising The Quayside's retail podium for $69 million, BT understands.
The price for the property in the Robertson Quay area works out to around $2,110 per square foot (psf) based on the units' total leaseable area of about 33,000 sq ft.
The property is being sold by an entity controlled by SP Tao's Shing Kwan Pte Ltd. This is believed to be his last major Singapore property investment.
The 16 retail units are part of a mixed development which includes 79 apartments above. The 16 units will give RB Capital a 40 per cent share value in the development which would put it in a key position if there is a collective sale of the property in future.
The Quayside is on a site with a remaining lease of slightly over 80 years.
Mr Tao, who was formerly chairman of Singapore Land, built the development on two adjoining plots adding up to about 61,655 sq ft which he bagged in an Urban Redevelopment Authority tender in August 1993.
The 16 units are fully leased and understood to be generating an average monthly rent of about $6 psf - translating to a net yield of around 3 per cent. The average passing rent is about half the current signing rents for similar units, say market watchers.
Tenants include restaurants such as Red House Seafood, Boomarang, Foodbar DaDa and Aburiya.
In the short term, RB Capital would be looking to spruce up the asset as existing leases expire and reposition it as a food and beverage hub.
Analysts reckon such a strategy should be viable, given the high-spending residents living in the area as well as tourists from the surrounding hotels.
Retail units in The Quayside are allotted 80 car park lots in the basement. Residents from the apartments above have separate carparking facilities on the project's second and third levels.
The Quayside is opposite The Gallery and Studio M hotels. It will also be near RB Capital's 450-room Holiday Inn Express Clarke Quay, which is under construction.
RB Capital, set up by Kishin RK, has a portfolio of three hotels with about 1,000 rooms under construction. Besides the Clarke Quay property, the other two are the Holiday Inn Express Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur and a 300-room property above Farrer Park MRT Station which will be managed by the Law family's Park Hotel Group.
The Farrer Park project - comprising the hotel, medical suites and some retail units - is said to have an on-completion value of about $450 million.
Among other properties in RB Capital's portfolio are EFG Bank Building in the High Street area, RB Capital Building in Raffles Place and a 26-storey KL office block, 33 Jalan Sultan Ismail, which houses HSBC.
The group plans to enter the medical suites arena, starting with the inclusion of such units as part of its development above Farrer Park MRT Station.
Source: Business Times –6 December 2012
Evans Road site to get $3m facelift
A popular spot along Evans Road will soon get a new lease of life.
The 14,508 sq m site at 26 Evans Road, which houses well- known eateries and the Evans Lodge student hostel, has a new landlord, Winsta Holding.
The hostel operator, which told The Straits Times two days ago of its $3 million makeover for the site, will take over the premises from Yess Le Green in early January. Renovations will start in the same month.
Winsta won the tender for the state-owned plot on Nov 16 with its offer of a $171,899 monthly rent, more than double the Singapore Land Authority's (SLA) guide rent of $77,000. The tenancy is for an initial term of three years, renewable for up to six years.
The refurbishment includes converting some of the hostel's 225 single rooms into two-room apartments with attached bathrooms, as well as adding kitchen facilities and new gym equipment.
This may be a necessary move. Reviews of the hostel on sites like TripAdvisor describe the rooms there as "vile" and "disgusting". One reviewer complained of a cockroach infestation and another of toilet cubicles reeking of urine.
The carpark there will be repaved and expanded. Units occupied by the site's three tenants - breakfast joint Hatched, The Wine Company restaurant and the 24-hour Mr Prata - will be repainted and fitted with brighter lighting.
Winsta is in talks with The Wine Company to build more accessible toilets. It has also asked Yess for the contact details of students who want to stay on.
"We will approach the students, look at their contracts, see what they are paying and work out a way forward," said Ms Lynn Sim, 34, director of Winsta Holdings, which operates six hostels here.
But rents will go up.
"It's necessary. The price we won the bid on is quite high," she said, adding that rents are likely to be $6 to $9 per sq m. They are now about $5 per sq m, according to tenants there.
Ms Sim said that Winsta will work with the three tenants and encourage them to stay.
"They have been here for so long and have built up a certain reputation. We would like them to continue, but we do have a bottom line to meet," she said, adding that a high bid was placed as such long-term leases for hostels are rare.
The site - comprising buildings that opened in 1958 as Eusoff College, the National University of Singapore's first university hall of residence for women - drew 23 bids in total. The next highest bid was Central Warehouse Service's $170,333 a month. Yess also placed a bid of $150,540 a month.
Yess, which has been leasing the site since 2003, could not be contacted for comment. It is not known how much it pays in rent, but The Straits Times understands that it is substantially lower than what Winsta will pay.
Ms Sim said existing tenants need not move out if they sign a new lease. The hostel will be renovated in stages and any displaced students will stay at Winsta's other hostels. Handover plans are being worked out, she said.
Ms Belinda Lim, co-owner of The Wine Company, said she has spoken to the new landlord. "I am glad a new landlord has come in and wants to keep us. We are definitely staying for sure," she said, adding that business has dropped recently as the place is run down.
"There is a lack of lighting at night and the carpark is too small," she said. She is writing to Winsta to see if it is possible to reduce the space she is renting, in light of the increase in rental.
Mr Prata co-owner Chandra Sehkar, 53, said: "I would like to stay. We have been here for seven years. Customers are familiar with the place. We will seriously consider staying even if the rental goes up."
Mr Gerald Tan, 30, who owns Hatched, said he needs to take a closer look at its accounts before making a decision. "We did expect an increase with a new landlord coming in. If the sums work out, we will continue," he said.
Source: The Straits Times –6 December 2012
INDUSTRIAL MARKET
Defu Industrial Estate poised for big makeover
The shabby and rambling Defu Industrial Estate is all set to be transformed into a gleaming, modern industrial park - with five times the current factory space and a city centre by its side.
The transformation will take place over the next 15-20 years, with existing factories progressively giving way to modern complexes. The estate itself will see landscaped greenery and environmentally sustainable features sprouting up. And while there could be tweaks along the way, the current plan is for six-storey buildings to rise in the new Defu Industrial Park.
The Defu City Centre, to be located beside Defu Industrial City in the new park, will provide the commercial buzz - including food-and-beverage outlets, convenience stores, medical clinics and childcare centres. This will be built after 2017, when the site is available for development.
Defu Industrial Estate is currently home to some 1,046 factories. It will be redeveloped in three phases from next year and the first phase is expected to be completed by mid-2017.
A total of 219 factories will be involved in Phase 1 of the redevelopment. These include 87 land- based factories which are on 30-year leases, along with 42 land-based factories and 90 terrace workshops on fixed-term tenancies.
As part of the redevelopment, two new complexes - Bedok Food City and Defu Industrial City - will be constructed to facilitate the relocation of the factories.
Factories in the food industry will be relocated to Bedok Food City while those in general industries will move to Defu Industrial City, a 13-hectare site adjacent to the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway.
According to Dominic Peters, director of industrial and business space at Savills, the development of a niche food factory space is timely considering the shortage of such premises. Productivity could also rise with new machinery and better designed facilities.
However, food factory industrialists that BT spoke to were less optimistic about the upcoming change.
"We are very concerned about the possible increase in rents as well as the impact it will have on our employees" said Desmond Goh, director of People Bee Hoon Factory, whose factory has been located in Defu Industrial Estate for over 30 years.
Mr Goh, who is in the business of producing rice vermicelli, said that workers living close to the current premises may quit if the factory were to relocate to Bedok Food City.
"And furthermore if we get hit by the rent increase it will be a double whammy," he said.
Construction of both the Bedok Food City and Defu Industrial City will begin in 2015 and is expected to be completed by mid-2017. Eligible industrialists will continue to operate in their existing premises until the new complexes are completed, upon which they will be given relocation benefits such as a rent concession, a rent-free fitting-up period, and an ex-gratia payment of $48,000 per relocated unit.
Also, upon completion of Defu Industrial City in 2017, HDB plans to develop the new Defu City Centre.
HDB wants to redevelop the 30-year-old Defu estate to optimise land use and to contain the pollution caused by the existing industries.
With the new industrial park, the total amount of factory floor space is expected to increase five-fold to 2.1 million square metres of industrial space.
Although market analysts welcomed the redevelopment plans to spruce up the dilapidated estate, they warned of the current lack of demand for such sites.
Defu Industrial Park will eventually house three key zones. The northern and central zones will be safeguarded for strategic industries such as logistics, precision engineering, infocommunications and media, electronics, clean energy and biomedical. The southern zone will be set aside for modern industrial complexes to house existing industrialists.
Source: Business Times –6 December 2012
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