Ong Beng Seng’s HPL Leads Sale Effort for Orchard Road Hotel Complex

Just over one year after winning provisional approval to redevelop a trio of buildings at the west end of Singapore’s Orchard Road, Ong Beng Seng’s Hotel Properties Ltd is poised to sell a commercial complex along the eastern portion of the famed shopping strip.

Savills earlier this month announced the launch of a collective sale of the Concorde Hotel and Shopping Centre with a guide price of S$820 million ($631.5 million) for the complex opposite Istana Park.

Hotel Properties Ltd holds more than the 80 percent ownership necessary to call for the sale, and to approve the disposal of, the strata-titled complex. In announcing the tender, Savills noted that an Outline Planning application has already been submitted to the authorities for a mixed-use redevelopment scheme on the site comprising hotel, commercial and residential elements.

“This large development site offers developers ample planning flexibility and multiple development options to create the next iconic landmark development in the heart of Orchard. Potential uses for the site include luxury retail, residential and hotel uses, subject to the relevant authorities’ approval,” the property consultancy said in a statement.

Space Available

“The Concorde Hotel & Shopping Centre has been a central part of Orchard Road for decades, and its redevelopment will usher in a new era of growth and revitalisation for the area,” said Jeremy Lake, managing director for investment sales and capital markets at Savills. “An incoming developer can leverage this site to create an iconic and dynamic space that anchors and accelerates the rejuvenation of Orchard Road.”

Lake added that while the current zoning is for hotel purposes, the site also lends itself to a mixed-use and integrated development, subject to approval by the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Measuring approximately 99,623 square feet (9,255 square metres), the island site at 100 Orchard Road benefits from around 558 feet (170 metres) of frontage along Singapore’s best known shopping strip. The site also borders Cavenagh Road, Kramat Lane & Buyong Road.

With a height cap of 10 storeys the existing property has an officially verified built area of 539,719 square feet of space, giving it a plot ratio of 5.41. With the master plan for the areas allowing for a plot ratio of up 5.6, a new owner could build a more than 3 percent larger project on the site, adding another 18,170 square feet of space.

Assuming a new owner follows the current outline application for a new project consisting of 40 percent hotel accommodation, 40 percent residential and 20 percent commercial space (including balconies), the guide price of S$820 million is equivalent to approximately S$1,801 per square foot of built area under the allowed plot ratio, according to Savills, which is the exclusive marketing agent for the project.

Those figures also assume the developer pays S$213.1 million to add a fresh 99 years to the existing land lease. The site is within three minutes’ walk of both the Dhoby Ghaut MRT Interchange and Somerset MRT station. Future development is planned for an underground walkway connecting the site to Somerset MRT.

The current complex consists of a three-storey retail podium with approximately 108,510 square feet of strata area and a 407-room hotel overlooking Istana Park on the fourth through ninth floors levels.

Riding the Rejuvenation

While big ticket deals have been scarce in Singapore under the current interest rate environment, Orchard Road has continued to see transactions as developers bet on government plans to rejuvenation the commercial district, which include turning a stretch of the street which includes the Concord Hotel site into a walking street.

“Rejuvenation plans have been confirmed and will be completed progressively from 2025 to pedestrianise this stretch of Orchard Road and expand the existing Istana Park green spaces situated directly across the site,” Savills said. “Concorde Hotel & Shopping Centre is strategically placed and poised to benefit from this transformation, being the key major gateway project that will connect Dhoby Ghaut to the upper stretch of Orchard Road.”

The Concorde Hotel site is just less than 2 kilometres (1.25 miles) from The Forum mall, the Voco Orchard Singapore hotel and the HPL House commercial block, a trio of properties which Hotel Properties Ltd, a Singapore-listed firm controlled by tycoon Ong Ben Seng, is redeveloping into a pair of towers combining hotel, retail, office and residential space.

At the time that its plans for that project received provisional approval in August of last year, Hotel Properties said, “If and when it is implemented and completed, the proposed redevelopment will transform this part of Orchard Road into a vibrant, energetic, significant and prominent precinct.”

Orchard Road in Vogue

With the tender for the Concorde Hotel complex set to close on 16 October, Savills underlined the appeal of sites on Singapore’s best-known shopping strip by pointing to its own track record in the area.

“Savills has brokered all the successful collective sales sites along Orchard Road in the past three years,” Lake said, pointing to the trades of the Tanglin Shopping Centre, the Ming Arcade and the Delfi Orchard. “This is a testament of the stellar attributes of a development site within the Orchard locale which is highly sought after by developers riding on the next wave of rejuvenation.”

City Developments Ltd is expected to combine Delfi Orchard, a strata-titled retail and office block which it agreed to acquire for S$439 million in May, with the adjoining Orchard Hotel Singapore, which is held by CDL Hospitality Trusts, a REIT controlled by the local development titan.

Singapore’s TE Capital and LaSalle Investment Management recently achieved record prices for the first two office floors sold in their VisionCrest Orchard project, which is located across Istana Park from the Concord Hotel complex. The joint venture had signed the $331 million agreement to acquire that complex during November in Singapore’s biggest commercial property deal of 2023.