JP Morgan to Lease 7 Floors in CapitaLand’s SG Office Tower CapitaSpring

Jamie Dimon helms JP Morgan Chase, parent company of the investment banking giant

JP Morgan has signed up as the first anchor tenant of CapitaLand’s latest skyscraper in downtown Singapore, with the financial services firm agreeing to lease 155,000 square feet of office space spanning seven stories – almost a quarter of the tower’s net lettable area.

The US investment banking giant is landing in CapitaLand’s $1.3 billion mixed-use development at 88 Market Street in the Raffles Place commercial hub. The Singaporean property group revealed the new name for the 51-storey building, CapitaSpring, on Thursday while announcing JP Morgan’s lease of levels 24 to 30.

Slated for completion in the first half of 2021, CapitaSpring is being developed by a joint venture between CapitaLand, its REIT affiliate CapitaLand Commercial Trust (CCT), and Japan’s Mitsubishi Estate Co. The partners broke ground on the landmark skyscraper in February, after scooping up the site in August of last year.

JP Morgan currently occupies CCT’s Capital Tower, a 52-storey skyscraper down the street at 168 Robinson Road, where it leases around 150,000 square feet of space, according to a 2014 media report. Capital Tower also houses the headquarters of CapitaLand Group.

JP Morgan Inks Lease as Office Market Heats up

Rendering of the upcoming 51-storey CapitaSpring development

Lynette Leong, CEO of CapitaLand Commercial said in a statement that JP Morgan has been a tenant of the company since 2001. “JP Morgan’s choice of CapitaSpring speaks volumes about the development’s strong appeal to progressive companies seeking a prestigious address with modern future-ready facilities,” she added.

Analysts cited by the Singapore Business Review said rents may have reached S$12-14 ($9.15-10.68) per square foot per month for the space in CapitaSpring. Gross effective rents in premium and grade A office buildings in the city’s central business district averaged S$8.21 per square foot per month in the last quarter of 2017, according to a market report by Colliers International.

No new office supply is expected to be completed in Raffles Place until 2021, with the fourth quarter rental rates representing an increase of 2.7 percent quarter-on-quarter and 2.3 percent year-on-year, as Singapore’s commercial property market began to recover from a two-year downturn. The central business district as a whole will see only a marginal increase in inventory from now till 2021, equating to roughly two percent of total office stock year, according to Colliers.

New York-based JP Morgan is said to employ about 3,000 people in the city-state as of 2016.

CapitaLand Moves Forward on $1.3B Tower

CapitaLand teamed up with CCT and Mitsubishi Estate last year to redevelop the former Golden Shoe Car Park site into a 280-metre-tall skyscraper that will add over one million square feet (93,000 square metres) of space to Singapore’s financial district. CapitaSpring will have an estimated total development cost of S$1.82 billion ($1.32 billion).

The integrated development will provide 635,000 square feet of grade A office space along with 299 serviced residence units. Designed by Danish superstar architect Bjarke Ingels and Italy’s Carlo Ratti Associati, the sustainable tower will be one of the five tallest in Singapore and will feature a botanical promenade, the Market Street Food Centre, and high-tech functions from facial recognition to robots.

CapitaLand and CCT each hold a 45 percent stake in the venture, while Mitsubishi Estate holds a 10 percent interest in the office and serviced residence components of the project.

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