Keppel Adds $80M Beijing Office Building to China Portfolio

Keppel Land China has announced it will acquire an 11-storey office building in Beijing’s Haidian district from A Li Yun Shan (Beijing) Business Consulting for RMB 555 million ($80.8 million), with the transaction expected to be completed sometime during the first quarter of the year.

Keppel President Ben Lee said the purchase was in line with Keppel’s strategy to grow its commercial portfolio in first-tier cities in China.

“We are confident that this strategically located property will meet the rising demand for prime office and retail space in Beijing,” Lee said in a Keppel press release. “Securing the project is opportune considering that it is a completed asset enjoying almost full occupancy and in a city where supply for quality commercial developments is limited.”

Space in Beijing’s High-tech Zone

The building comprises nine storeys of office space, with a GFA of 8,532 square metres, and two storeys of retail space, with a GFA of 2,104 square metres. It comes with 23 car parking spaces. As of September, the building was 97 percent occupied, Keppel said. It sits directly above the Haidian Wuluju Subway Station in Beijing’s “Silicon Valley” of Zhongguancun, which also houses multinationals such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Ericcson, Oracle, Xiaomi, and Weibo.

Keppel is making the purchase through its Tosalco subsidiary.

The Beijing acquisition comes as part of a recent buying spree by Keppel in China. In late December, the company announced it had acquired a 4.7 hectare residential site in the Chengdu Tianfu New Area for RMB 889.7 million through a government tender bid. The site is expected to be developed into a residential community, housing 768 high-rise and 96 low-rise apartments.

Keppel’s Green Plans

Keppel also purchased a Tianjin “Eco-City” residential site in December for $214 million. It plans to build 392 terraces houses and 180 low-rise apartments on an area of about 11 hectares in the Tianjin Binhai New Area. The project is targeted at upper- and middle-income homebuyers and is set to launch in the fourth quarter.

Keppel has already built 4,500 residential units in Eco-City, with 98 percent of them sold, according to the company.

Eco-City is a joint project developed by the Chinese and Singaporean governments intended as a model for sustainable urbanization. The 30-square-kilometre township already houses approximately 7,000 companies and 100,000 residents and is in its second phase of development. When complete, Eco-City is expected to have a population of 350,000 people.