Ascott to open 3 new Singapore properties
SERVICE apartment operator The Ascott Group yesterday said it would open three more properties here by the end of 2008.
This will add about 500 service apartment units to its current portfolio, and is in line with the group’s plan to have 1,600 units in Singapore by 2010.
With the additions, Ascott will have 1,357 units in 13 properties here.
Of the three new properties, two will come under the group’s recently- acquired Citadines label, marking the European value-for-money brand’s first entry into Singapore.
Ascott operates service apartments under three brand names: Ascott, Somerset and Citadines.
The 148-unit Citadines Scotts will take the place of Hotel Asia in Scotts Road, which Ascott bought for $108 million in July, while the 160-unit Citadines Mt Sophia will be located at the Selegie Complex site currently being developed by Ascott’s parent CapitaLand.
The third property will assume the group’s top- tier Ascott label and have 154 units, all suites. Ascott will convert the Asia Insurance Building, which it paid $109.5 million for, into Ascott Raffles Place.
This will replace the group’s flagship property, The Ascott Singapore at Scotts Shopping Centre in Scotts Road, which Ascott sold to Wheelock Properties in June 2004. Ascott’s lease on that property was due to expire at year-end.
Ascott will spend $60 million in all to convert Hotel Asia and Asia Insurance Building into service apartments, the group said at a briefing yesterday.
It decided to refurbish the properties rather than tear down and redevelop them so that they can be opened sooner, said Ascott chief executive Cameron Ong.
Citadines Scotts will be opened by the middle of next year, while the other two will be ready in 2008.
This is to beat the onslaught of new hotel rooms that is expected in a few years’ time, with the Government releasing a slew of hotel sites this year, Mr Ong added.
He also said that Ascott Raffles Place will be injected into the group’s property trust ‘definitely within the next five years’. This fits Ascott’s ‘asset-light’ strategy to free up capital for new acquisitions.
As for Citadines Scotts, Ascott may explore other options, such as selling or developing it.
‘Property prices are still moving up, and Citadines Scotts is such a prime site, so I think Ascott has a lot of options for the property,’ he said.
Source : Straits Times -29 Sep 2006
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