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Published May 19, 2011
Two redevelopment sites up for sale
Consortium that bought 70 Shenton Way is selling the site while Elizabeth Tower is the latest collective sale
By KALPANA RASHIWALA
TWO redevelopment sites have been put on the market - Elizabeth Tower and 70 Shenton Way.
70 Shenton Way: The office block has approval for redevelopment into a 60:40 commercial-residential project
A five-member consortium which includes Roxy-Pacific Holdings which bought 70 Shenton Way for $148 million in April last year is now seeking to sell the office block, which has approval for redevelopment into a 60:40 commercial-residential project, at a price said to be around $270 million.
This price works out to $1,583 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr) including an estimated $56.72 million for topping up the site's lease to 99 years from the balance term of 58 years and an estimated $6.93 million development charge (DC).
This calculation is based on the new development retaining 70 Shenton Way's existing gross floor area of 210,729 sq ft.
This is the maximum GFA allowed for the redevelopment under provisional permission granted by Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Aug 31 last year and extended till Aug 31, 2011.
However, property consultancy group DTZ, which is marketing 70 Shenton Way's sale through a tender exercise, said that the unit land price could potentially be lowered to $1,534 psf ppr if the successful developer is allowed to tap the maximum 10 per cent bonus gross floor area for balconies for the residential component of the proposed development.
This would entail a higher DC of $11.2 million but a lower lease upgrade premium of $54.9 million (based on the lower unit land price).
Such a scheme would take the potential GFA to 219,158 sq ft inclusive of the 8,429 sq ft bonus balcony allowance.
URA's provisional permission is for a 32-storey project on the 19,736 sq ft site which will include shops on the ground floor.
The proposed project will have mechanical carparking in basement 1, as well as conventional car park lots in a podium carpark on levels two to five.
Above that will be offices, while 135 apartments will be spread across the 24th to 32nd levels. There will be three sky terrace levels - on the sixth, 14th and 23rd floors.
Singapore Land Authority has granted in-principle approval for topping up the site's lease to 99 years, although the amount payable for this has not been made known yet.
Besides Roxy-Pacific, the other members of the consortium which owns 70 Shenton Way are Fission Group, Macly Capital, Pinnacle Assets and architect Chee Hsian Sing. All five hold equal stakes.
The tender for 70 Shenton Way will close on June 23.
Roxy-Pacific executive chairman and CEO Teo Hong Lim told BT that while the consortium had originally planned to redevelop the site itself, it has now decided to try and sell the site through a formal tender process after receiving unsolicited enquiries from property agents keen on finding buyers for the site.
'This will also give us an opportunity to ride on the increase in office capital values over the past year,' he added.
'If the consortium does not get the kind of price we have in mind, we can still proceed to redevelop the property itself,' he added.
Separately, the majority owners of the freehold Elizabeth Tower at Mount Elizabeth off Orchard Road have put their homes up for collective sale with an asking price of $630 million.
The site is zoned for residential use with 2.8 plot ratio and 36-storey maximum height under Master Plan 2008. URA has verified the project's existing GFA reflects an equivalent gross plot ratio of 4.6474.
Based on this, the $630 million price tags works out to $2,496 psf ppr (with no DC payable).
However, the unit land price could potentially be lowered to $2,323 psf ppr assuming the successful developer is allowed to tap the maximum 10 per cent bonus balcony allowance, which would entail an estimated DC of $15 million being payable, according to Credo Real Estate, which is marketing the site.
On both calculations, the breakeven cost for a new project would cross the $3,000 psf mark, say analysts. The tender for Elizabeth Tower closes on June 22.
The $630 million price tag for Elizabeth Towers is lower than the $673 million asking price during the previous collective sale attempt for the property in late 2007.
The last successful large-scale collective sale site sold in District 9 was Westwood Apartments, which transacted at $453 million or $2,525 psf ppr in 2007.