Super penthouse at Sculptura Ardmore sold for over S$60m

August 1, 2017

KALPANA RASHIWALA


PRICES in the Core Central Region may be relatively soft compared to peak levels but Simon Cheong's SC Global Developments is understood to have sold the super penthouse at Sculptura Ardmore at an eye-popping price of over S$6,000 per square foot.

Going by the strata area of about 10,300 square feet, the absolute price works out to more than S$60 million - busting the S$51 million that Alibaba co-founder Sun Tongyu paid for the sole penthouse at Wing Tai's Le Nouvel Ardmore in 2015, based on caveats data.

That deal translated to S$3,757 psf on the 13,573 sq ft strata area spread over the top two levels of the 33-storey freehold project.

SC Global declined to comment when contacted about the penthouse sale at the completed Sculptura Ardmore. The 36-storey freehold project has 34 units. The penthouse of about 10,300 sq ft comes with a cantilevered private pool.

Information on the unit is scant, with SC Global keeping details private and allowing viewings only after it screens potential buyers.

The penthouse is understood to take up levels 35 and 36.

To date, no caveats have been lodged for units in the freehold project.

The penthouse of the freehold development is the highest point in Ardmore Park.

The price of more than S$6,000 psf is the highest ever achieved in the Ardmore Park locale.

"The highest prices in Ardmore Park have never crossed S$5,000 psf," said Samuel Eyo, managing director of Singapore Christie's International Real Estate (Residential), "and that too for relatively smallish units sold on an individual basis by developers."

However, the psf price at which SC Global is selling the penthouse of the Sculptura Ardmore is probably shy of the record S$6,840 psf that the developer achieved back in 2011 at another of its projects, The Marq on Paterson Hill.

But that transaction did not involve a penthouse. It was a 3,003 sq ft, four-bedroom apartment on the 20th storey of the development's Premier Tower. The absolute quantum worked out to S$20.54 million.

Jacqueline Wong, executive director at Savills Private Office, said that the appeal of Sculptura Ardmore's penthouse, besides its posh address and freehold tenure, would be the privacy - of not being overlooked by any other residence in the area because it is at the highest point of Ardmore Park.

"The buyer is most likely to be a foreigner as a Singaporean would most likely go for a Good Class Bungalow.

"I am servicing more than a handful of ultra high net worth clients from Korea, India, China/Hong Kong who do not qualify to buy a landed property in a GCB Area (because they are not Singapore citizens).

"So they can buy a villa on Sentosa Cove, but these are on 99-year leasehold land. For those who prefer a freehold property, their choice would be a super penthouse in the prime districts."