Sites in Jurong, Woodlands, Holland Village up for bidding

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http://www.straitstimes.com/archive/...dding-20141206

Sites in Jurong, Woodlands, Holland Village up for bidding

Published on Dec 6, 2014 12:42 AM

By Cheryl Ong


DEVELOPERS are being invited to bid for three land sites, including a prime parcel in the heart of Holland Village.

One site in Jurong West Street 41 was put up for sale yesterday, while an executive condominium site in Woodlands Avenue 12 will be up for tender from Dec 16.

Both are confirmed-list sites under the Government Land Sales programme, and will be put up for sale regardless of interest from developers.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) also released to developers its sales conditions for a coveted commercial and residential site in Holland Road.

In all, the three parcels will be able to accommodate up to 1,500 private condominium units.

The plum 2.3ha mixed-use plot in Holland Road was to have been put up for sale this month, under a plan announced last year.

But the URA changed its approach on Thursday and put the site on the reserve list for the first half of next year in a more measured move, requiring bidders to adhere to a "concept and price revenue" tender system.

Now, developers must first make an opening offer acceptable to the URA to trigger the site for sale, and submit their design proposals and bid prices in two separate envelopes.

"The concept proposals will be first evaluated against a set of criteria specified in the tender. Only tenders that meet the criteria will be considered for award," said URA.

Some conditions specified by URA include the quality of the project's architecture and landscaping, attractiveness of its public spaces, as well as the developers' track record.

Also, the project's commercial component cannot be strata sub-divided to be sold to individual buyers.

Holland Village was identified as a place with distinct character, or one of Singapore's "identity nodes", in the URA Master Plan 2014 in November last year.

It said that the new mixed development will "add to the vibrancy of Holland Village as a great place to live, work and play", and give more retail and dining options for people who want to live in the heart of Holland Village.

Separately, the Jurong West parcel is able to accommodate up to 575 units, while the executive condo (EC) site in Woodlands can have up to 390 units. Both plots have a lease of 99 years.

ECs are a special hybrid of housing built by private developers but sold with conditions set by the Housing Board.

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http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/real...n-h1-gls-slate

Woodlands, Holland Rd sites take spotlight in H1 GLS slate

Holland site goes to reserve list to allow more time to study evaluation criteria for dual-envelope tender

By Kalpana Rashiwala

[email protected]@KalpanaBT

5 Dec


THE government's much-awaited decision to move the commercial and residential site near Holland Village MRT Station from the confirmed list to the reserve list, as well as its decision not to offer any office sites on the confirmed list in the first half of 2015, were the two major talking points in the market following the announcement on Thursday of the latest Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme.

Nevertheless, three sites for predominantly office development will be available for application by developers on the H1 2015 reserve list.

A drop in the total supply of land for private housing including EC (executive condominium) units on both confirmed and reserve lists for H1 2015 compared with the current H2 2014 slate was expected, given weak home sales and the ongoing ramp-up in housing completions that is sending vacancy rates northward.

In all, there are just four new sites on the confirmed and reserve lists for the next half. Besides a commercial site (mostly for office use) in Woodlands Square, the other three new plots are a reserve-list site for EC housing on Yio Chu Kang Road near the popular Rosyth School, another EC site in Choa Chu Kang Avenue 5 and a private housing site fronting Sungei Pandan as well as Ayer Rajah Expressway. ECs are a public-private hybrid housing form.

The Ministry of National Development (MND) revealed that the Holland Road site would be sold through a dual-envelope system. Bidders will submit their concept proposals and tender prices in two separate envelopes.

Concept proposals will be evaluated first. The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) will then award the site to the highest bidder among the tenderers with acceptable concepts.

"URA has assessed that there is a need to give tenderers more time to study the site and tender evaluation criteria before triggering it for sale. This is because tenderers must submit concept proposals to be evaluated against URA's vision to ensure a future development which enhances the unique charm and character of the Holland Village Identity Node," said a spokesman for the planning authority.

Market watchers expect URA to spell out detailed evaluation criteria including controls on design, architecture and connectivity to Holland Village MRT Station on the Circle Line. Sites sold by URA through the dual-envelope system in recent years include those for the South Beach and Capitol projects.

Welcoming URA's decision to adopt a dual-envelope approach for the Holland Road site, Desmond Sim, head of CBRE Research, Singapore and South East Asia, said: "Equity muscle will not be the sole determinant for the award of this site . . . some concerns from the public for this prominent site can be safeguarded - including the proposed project's design, and the final intended use of the space created - such as whether it is to be managed by a single landlord or sold as strata units."

Colliers International director Chia Siew Chuin was surprised that MND chose not to release any commercial sites on the confirmed list next half given that office supply is expected to become tight beyond 2018.

DTZ SE Asia chief operating officer Ong Choon Fah said: "URA remains cautious reflecting the underlying sentiments over pipeline supply as well as the economic vulnerabilities in an increasingly connected, volatile and fragile (world). Financial institutions are not expanding the way they used to, and traditionally they are the large space occupiers that are willing to pay top rents."

Some market watchers, however, reckoned that MND could potentially inject an office site in the confirmed list in the second half of 2015.

In the meantime, concerns about a potential office shortage over the medium term could be mitigated by three predominantly office sites on the reserve list for H1 2015. One of these will be a new site, at Woodlands Square, to sustain the development momentum of the Woodlands Regional Centre; the other two are the Marina View and Beach Road sites that will be carried over from the H2 2014 reserve list.

JLL's South-east Asia research head Chua Yang Liang said offering the Woodlands Square site is a "strategic move to build up sufficient commercial threshold to position Woodlands as the next regional centre after Jurong, possibly in the next five to eight years, especially given the new Thomson Line that would connect to JB".

The site is a stone's throw from an earlier office site sold in April to a Far East-Sekisui consortium. Woods Square, the proposed project on the site, is expected to have two office towers, one for strata unit sales (expected to begin next year) and the other for leasing.

"The tender for that site saw strong competition from eight bidders and the government is reading between the lines and playing the supplier role to match pent-up demand from developers," said Donald Han, managing director of Chestertons. "It's good that the second site is offered on the reserve list as developers need to study demand parameters carefully as the office market up north is fairly untested."

MND has trimmed the total supply of private homes including ECs on the confirmed list next half to 3,020 units, 9.4 per cent lower than the revised supply of 3,335 units in H2 2014 after factoring in the transfer of the Holland Road site to the reserve list.

While the EC supply of 490 units is just one-third of the 1,520-unit supply in the H2 2014 confirmed list, Mr Han pointed out that the "confirmed list is seeing a higher dosage of private residential (non-EC) supply in H1 2015 compared to H2 2014".

"The government may be signalling that residential land prices have remained stubbornly elevated and the way forward is to release more land via the confirmed list," he added.

However, R'ST Research director Ong Kah Seng said the increase is due partly to four sites that had been sitting on the reserve list being moved to the confirmed list. The four are at Sturdee Road, Dundee Road, Lorong 6/4 Toa Payoh and Tampines Avenue 10 (Parcel D).

JLL's Dr Chua said that the first three are infill sites, where the surrounding areas are mature with existing facilities especially train stations. "This would help to regenerate old estates if not meet the ever-increasing pressure from private market demand. . . "

On the reserve list, private housing supply (including ECs) has been cut 16.6 per cent to 5,745 units in H1 2015 from 6,885 units in the current half.

The total quantum of 1,010 EC units from confirmed and reserve lists in H1 2015 is the lowest half-yearly figure since 2010, when the sale of EC sites resumed. Mr Ong from RST said: "It seems EC demand has more or less been met, and the government also does not want to encourage unnecessary buying of ECs, which are subsidised housing.

"There are also cases of couples who make full use of their eligibility to buy an EC but who actually don't really need one and so leave it vacant when it is completed."

Year to date, six EC projects totalling nearly 3,000 units have been completed. The vacancy rate for ECs rose to 16.2 per cent in Q3 this year from 10.7 per cent in Q3 2013.