Logos Agrees to Buy Site for S$270M Singapore Warehouse

Logos Property has agreed to purchase an industrial site near Singapore’s West Coast Highway as the regional logistics real estate firm continues to grow its presence in Southeast Asia.

Following completion of the acquisition, Logos says it will redevelop the property at 4 Pandan Crescent into a 110,000-square-metre (1.2 million square foot) e-commerce logistics facility at a total cost of S$270 million ($198 million).

Logos announced the conditional sale and purchase agreement for 4 Pandan Crescent via a media release dated 1 August. No price was given for the transaction.

Underutilised Industrial Site

Located in Jurong Town Corporation’s Pandan Industrial Estate, the property is situated about 10 minutes from the East-West Line’s Clementi MRT Station. It is directly on the West Coast Highway and has easy access to the Central Business District, Pasir Panjang Port and the Jurong Lake District.

The 519,078-square-foot site at present hosts the three-storey, 508,121-square-foot Tien Wah Press Building. It is on a 30+30 lease, which commenced in 1994, and is zoned Business 2, which allows for clean, light industry and warehousing. The plot ratio is 2.5.

“Large sites in prime locations that can accommodate modern, ramp-up logistics facilities are limited. At 48,224 square metres, the site contains under-utilised plot ratio which offers immense potential for redevelopment,” said Brenda Ong, executive director of industrial and logistics services at CBRE commented in a statement.

E-commerce Hub in the Making

Logos will redevelop the site into a six-storey, ramp-up logistics hub with accompanying office space. Pending approvals, construction will begin next year, with the first phase expected to be finished by 2020. The asset will offer a wide range of storage solutions in demand by e-commerce players and in line with the government’s efforts to promote better distribution. Logos is currently negotiating with potential tenants.

“The redeveloped 4 Pandan Crescent will be the one of the few e-commerce-focused facilities in Singapore,” said Stephen Hawkins, Managing Director of Logos southeast Asia. “Logos is excited to be involved in the transformation of Singapore’s logistics industry.”

Logos Building Out in the Region

The 4 Pandan Crescent investment is being undertaken by LOGOS Singapore Logistics Venture, which is backed by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate subsidiary of pension Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, following a March 2017 investment.

Upon completion of this latest acquisition, the venture will hold a total of five properties in its portfolio, include a pair of existing warehouses and two more development sites.

The most recent investment made by the venture is in an industrial site at 21 Tuas West Drive, which will be redeveloped into a five-storey food processing and logistics facility with total net lettable area of 27,000 square metres. That deal was signed in late 2017, and the project is scheduled for completion in 2019.

From Shanghai and Sydney into SE Asia

Logos, which was founded in 2010, is a regional player most active so far in China and Australia, with 11 properties and more than 1 million square metres of space in the former and 22 properties and more than 1.4 million square metres in the latter. As of end June 2018, Logos had a total of $4.2 billion of equity commitments in 15 ventures.

In addition to the Singapore fund, it has the LOGOS Indonesia Logistics Venture, also with Canadian pension backing, as well as the Logos India Logistics Venture, which was formed in late 2017 and is supported by Ivanhoé Cambridge and QuadReal Property Group, a Vancouver-based real estate investor.