The owners of Roxy Square in Singapore’s Katong area have launched a collective sale of the mixed-use complex at a minimum price of S$1.25 billion ($930 million), seeing an opportunity to fill a gap in the market for combined residential and commercial projects in the lower East Coast neighbourhood.
“In the Katong area, there are currently no comparable mixed-use sites to Roxy Square available for redevelopment, not to mention a freehold one,” said Tan Hong Boon, an executive director with JLL’s capital markets team in Singapore. “Knowing the keen interest from many medium and large, local and foreign developers, we anticipate significant interest for this very rare freehold opportunity.”
Subject to regulatory approval, a new owner of the property could redevelop the existing 668,000 square foot (62,059 square metre) complex into a 10 percent larger project, JLL pointed out.
The sale effort comes at a challenging time for commercial redevelopment projects in Singapore, with large-scale transactions facing hurdles from high financing costs and tighter credit conditions.
MRT Connectivity
More than 80 percent of the owners have consented to the sale of the property, which lies next to Marine Parade MRT station on the eastern fringe of central Singapore. The site is currently occupied by the Roxy Square Shopping Centre and the Grand Mercure Roxy Hotel, sole marketing agent JLL said Wednesday in a release.
The freehold project, which currently comprises 296 shops (52 owned by Roxy-Pacific), 26 apartments and 576 hotel rooms, was built in three phases from the early 1980s to 2000 by formerly SGX-listed Roxy-Pacific Holdings, which is headquartered at the property and went private in 2022.
Roxy Square’s gross floor area of 668,000 square feet (62,059 square metres) could potentially be configured into a mixed-use development with over 350 residential units and 80,000 square feet of retail and F&B space, subject to government approval. The remaining GFA of 172,000 square feet can be set aside for office, hotel or other commercial uses.
The minimum price of S$1.25 billion translates to S$2,094 per square foot of built area, inclusive of a land betterment charge at the gross plot ratio of 3.86. Factoring an additional 10 percent bonus GFA for the residential component with the LBC payable, the unit land rate is S$2,034 per square foot, according to JLL.
The entrance of the newly opened Marine Parade MRT station is directly in front of the Roxy Square site, which is serviced by Marine Parade, East Coast and Brooke roads. A provision for a knock-out panel at the station will enable a future development to connect directly to the station concourse level, linking it to the underground pedestrian network.
“There are many success stories of developers achieving premium prices for such mixed-use projects, especially those which are typically transit-oriented with a MRT station and even a bus interchange integrated into the site,” Tan said. “The overall accessibility of the area would greatly enhance the comfort and convenience of the public when moving between the Marine Parade and East Coast Road areas.”
Quiet on the Deal Front
The Roxy Square tender closes on 26 September and takes place amid a quiet year for Singapore’s collective sale market.
In June, an attempted collective sale of Far East Shopping Centre failed for the second time in three months, with owners rejecting an offer of roughly S$880 million ($654.5 million) for the strata-titled property on Orchard Road.
Mingtiandi reported in May that an Indonesian developer new to the Singapore market was offering S$850 million for the property near the intersection with Paterson Road, citing sources familiar with the deal. The offer came on the heels of Du Shuanghua’s Bright Ruby Resources withdrawing its S$908 million bid after failing to win approval to expand the floor area permitted for a new project on the 999-year leasehold site.
Also in May, City Developments Ltd was awarded the rights to Delfi Orchard, a strata-titled 11-storey commercial building near the intersection with Claymore Road, after bidding S$439 million ($325.6 million) in a collective sale. CDL already held 126 of the 150 strata units in the 1985-vintage building.
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