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Award delayed as SingTel seeks to reduce premium payable to state

CENTREPOINT Properties has emerged as the highest bidder for SingTel’s former warehouse site on West Coast Road, but its award has been delayed as SingTel is seeking to reduce the amount of differential premium (DP) payable to the state for the change of status of the site, BT understands.

Sources say Centrepoint’s top bid of about $220 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr) is inclusive of an estimated $40 million payment to the state.

The payment to the state comprises an estimated $30 million DP for a change in the use of the site from industrial to residential and about $10 million as lease upgrading premium, to top up the site’s lease from the remaining tenure of about 66 years to 99 years.

Provisional approval has been granted for the site to be redeveloped into a 225-unit, five-storey condo, with a 1.4 plot ratio (ratio of potential gross floor area to land area).

Originally, the successful bidder was supposed to make the payment due to the state. However, Centrepoint’s bid is for a lump sum of about $220 psf ppr, which includes the land price payable to SingTel as well as the DP and lease upgrading premium payable to the state. So if SingTel is successful in negotiating a lower DP, Centrepoint will accordingly adjust upwards the land price component it will pay to SingTel.

As a market watcher put it, ‘Either way the total cost to Centrepoint is locked at $220 psf ppr. So if there is a reduction in DP, SingTel will get a higher price for its land. Hence, SingTel has an incentive to try and negotiate the DP downwards.’

Credo Real Estate, which handled the tender for the West Coast site, declined to comment when contacted.

BT understands a similar situation may arise for SingTel’s site at the corner of Hillcrest and Dunearn roads, currently on the market.

Here, the successful bidder will pay the state almost $40 million, comprising a $35 million DP to change the site’s status from ‘utility’ to ‘residential’ and around $5 million for upgrading the property’s lease to 99 years.

In this case, industry watchers say that although the site is currently zoned ‘utility’, the price at which SingTel bought the property - which it has been using as a training centre - worked out to a price that reflected commercial land use at the time. Hence, the DP payable should be calculated on the basis of change of use from commercial to residential and not from utility to residential, goes the argument. The former scenario should result in a substantially lower DP.

Provisional approval has been granted to redevelop the Hillcrest property into 160 strata terrace houses with a 1.4 plot ratio, although market watchers suggest the successful bidder could instead apply to develop a five-storey condo with a 1.4 plot ratio.

Source : Business Times - 28 Mar 2006