SingTel seen putting up Dunearn Rd centre for sale
AFTER announcing the sale of its Old Holland Rd property yesterday for $29.8 million, Singapore Telecom is expected to put its Dunearn Road training centre on the market soon for about $95 million.
The centre, next to Raffles Girls’ Primary School and on the corner of Dunearn and Hillcrest roads, is now occupied by SingTel Academy.
It includes two 11-storey tower blocks, a few shorter buildings and a swimming pool.
The 256,486 sq ft site comprises two land parcels - one with about 85 years of its lease remaining and the other with 75 years.
The successful bidder will have to pay the state almost $40 million - one premium to top up the lease to 99 years, and another to change the site’s use from ‘utility’ to ‘residential’.
The expected $95 million price of the site plus the near-$40 million upgrading payment to the state works out to a unit land price of almost $380 psf of potential gross floor area.
Provisional approval has been granted for two storey, strata-title landed terrace houses with attics and basement carparks, with a 1.4 plot ratio - the ratio of potential gross floor area to land area. This is expected to yield about 160 such houses.
Market watchers say the successful bidder could instead apply to the authorities to develop a five-storey condo with a 1.4 plot ratio, as this would still be in keeping with the surrounding low-rise residential character.
Jones Lang LaSalle is said to have been appointed marketing agent.
The property should generate strong interest given its proximity to good schools - Raffles Girls’ Primary and Nanyang Girls’ High are both within a kilometre. This should create a sizeable pool of ‘captive buyers’ for the project - and hence the site.
As for the freehold site at 859 Old Holland Rd site, the $29.8 million sale price works out to $513 psf for a net land area of 81,400 sq ft after road widening and inclusive of a $12 million development charge.
The buyer, who was the highest bidder during the tender, is Brisbane Development Pte Ltd, a company fully owned by Bestwise Pte Ltd, whose ultimate shareholders include Indonesia’s Tjugito family, linked to the Eagle Indo Group.
Brisbane plans a cluster housing project designed by SCDA Architects, comprising up to 30 semi-detached homes with facilities such as a swimming pool and basement parking.
The breakeven cost is estimated at $2.1 million per house, and Brisbane could expect to sell the homes for about $2.5-2.9 million in a year’s time. Credo Real Estate brokered the sale of the site.
Eagle Indo group deve loped the Enterprise Industrial Building along Sims Avenue in 1995 and owns the 50,000 sq ft at Delta House on Alexandra Rd, bought more than 20 years ago.
Some time over a year ago, Bestwise bought four floors in John Hancock Tower - now known as 6 Raffles Quay - for about $750 psf of net lettable area.
The Tjugito family also has property interests in Australia, including a stake in the recently completed 53-storey Riparian Plaza in Brisbane’s CBD, comprising offices and residential penthouses overlooking the Brisbane River.
Market watchers are also waiting for SingTel to award another site - at 50 West Coast Rd. As with 859 Old Holland Road, the tender for this site closed in November last year.
BT understands the highest bid received for the West Coast plot could be close to $30 million - about $220 psf per plot ratio inclusive of a premium to top up the lease to 99 years and a change-of-use premium.
Source : Business Times - 24 Feb 2006
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