Freehold city condo in the works

ONE of the few freehold residential projects to be built in Singapore's city centre is now on the drawing board thanks to an unusual property deal.

The project will be constructed on the land in Tanjong Pagar where Keppel Towers and GE Tower now stand and is the result of a rare swap of properties between two companies.

K-Reit Asia, the real estate investment trust that owns Keppel Towers and GE Tower, is selling the two freehold office buildings to Keppel Land for $573 million. In return, Keppel Land will sell its one-third stake in Phase One of Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC) to K-Reit Asia for just over $1.4 billion. Keppel will reap a net gain of about $321 million from selling the asset.

Based on these prices, the values of the properties work out to be $2,450 per sq ft (psf) for MBFC, and $1,201 psf of the total potential floor area for Keppel Towers and GE Tower.

Keppel plans to redevelop the office buildings in Hoe Chiang Rd diagonally opposite Amara Singapore into a high-rise condominium with shops and restaurants on the first floor. It will comprise two towers of 620 apartments in all.

The developer has already obtained outline planning permission from the Urban Redevelopment Authority to redevelop the site, with a plot ratio of 5.6 and a total gross floor area of 481,800 sq ft.

Read the full report in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.

Keppel Towers

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/38/94573993_3f56622bff_z.jpg?zz=1

http://www.emporis.com/img/6/2003/08/212170.jpg
Source: Emporis.com

GE Tower

http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/image/20101011/ln-sg-freehold.jpg

Interesting project! Looking forward to seeing the renders.

Anoter exciting project in the making. Cant wait to see the renders!!

Wow... would all the tenants agree to move?

Hope it willl be over 200m!! Whats the height limit for this plot?

Would there be enough office space? So much office space had been lost and turned into resi... 1 Shenton, NatWest, the Clift site, up next this and UIC..

^^ See the supply coming with all the new developments on the reclaimed land area of Marina Bay, I'm not so worried about that.

^^I accually feel that with all the new office developments, we have more then enough. BTW How old are these two towers?

The tenants will have no choice when their contracts end. They probably can move to Asia Square, One Shenton, OFC and MBFC tower 3 which I think are not fully taken up.

Keppel Towers is 19 years old while GE tower is 17 years old. One of the reasons they decide to redevelop is due to the increasingly expensive maintenance. I personally feel that the towers are too new and nice to be redeveloped. But this is Singapore where re-developing cost is just a tiny fraction of the land cost.

Tanjong Pagar is slowly and surely transforming :cheers:

The tenants will have no choice when their contracts end. They probably can move to Asia Square, One Shenton, OFC and MBFC tower 3 which I think are not fully taken up.

Keppel Towers is 19 years old while GE tower is 17 years old. One of the reasons they decide to redevelop is due to the increasingly expensive maintenance. I personally feel that the towers are too new and nice to be redeveloped. But this is Singapore where re-developing cost is just a tiny fraction of the land cost.

Tanjong Pagar is slowly and surely transforming :cheers:



yeah, the towers really look modern and nice? It's really quite wasteful to tear down something like that, wonder why URA agreed to it ? higher plot ratio ?

Tanjong Pagar is slowly and surely transforming :cheers:

^^ I wonder, is this the signal that the Tanjong Pagar area is slowly transforming into a luxury resi district with the Marina Bay area becoming more financial/business district? I presume the port move will be in the planning stage next (as in 5 or 6 six years time perhaps?)

Perhaps the port would move to Tuas..

The Towers are still there