Sites in Singapore’s One North Draw Top Range Bids as Housing Market Heats Up

Two lesser-known players in Singapore’s property market have emerged as the top bidders at a tender for a pair of residential sites with commercial elements in the city’s One North new-economy hub.

Bidding for Parcel A, the larger of the two sites on Slim Barracks Rise, a narrow road dividing the One North project, was led by local firm EL Development with a bid of S$320.1 million ($235.9 million), while Chinese transplant Kingsford Development topped the tender for Parcel B with a S$162.4 million offer.

With Singapore’s housing market continuing to heat up and the government intent on creating a regional tech hub in the area in the Queenstown area, both sites drew a higher than normal number of offers, with the prevailing bids coming in near the top end of earlier analyst estimates of from S$1,050 to S$1,300 per square foot for the two 99-year leasehold plots.

A decision on the awarding of the government land tender, which closed Tuesday, will be announced at a later date, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said in a release.

Residential Rising

Both of the projects are designated for residential development with commercial at the first storey, with Parcel A set to yield up to 256,956 square feet (23,871 square metres) of gross floor area from the 85,648 square foot site.

At the price offered, EL a subsidiary of the Evan Lim construction group, would be paying roughly S$1,246 ($918) per square foot fo built space, which can yield about 264 residential units.

For Parcel B, a unit of Kingsford Development, a local developer founded by former mainland tax collector turned real estate entrepreneur Cui Zhengfeng, is first in line for the rights to build 134,194 square feet of gross floor area on the 63,905 square foot site. Kingford, which also made the second-highest bid for Parcel A, would be paying S$1,210 per square foot for its slice of western Singapore.

A representative of property consultancy CBRE told Mingtiandi that the Slim Barracks Rise projects could sell for above S$2,100 per square foot when launched.

Through the end of August, developers have sold over 49 percent more private homes in Singapore than in the first eight months of 2020, according to URA statistics. With interest rates continuing to scrape bottom, buyers kept out of the market by 2020 lockdowns helped drive sales of prime non-landed homes to S$2.0 billion during the first six months of this year, according to statistics from Knight Frank, with that figure representing the highest first-half total since 2010.

R&D Hub in Focus

Each of the two sites drew 10 bids, signalling keen interest in residential development at Slim Barracks Rise, a lane that runs through the heart of the 200 hectare (494 acre) One North, a master-planned R&D hub in Queenstown on the western fringe of central Singapore.

In 2019, another site at Slim Barracks Rise went to tender and garnered nine bids topping out at S$1,001 per square foot. That property is being developed by a joint venture between Kwek Leng Beng’s Hong Leong Holdings and Mitsui Fudosan into the One North Eden residential complex, which in April was 85 percent sold at prices ranging from S$1,800 to S$2,250 per square foot, the Business Times reported.

When the latest sites were placed on the government land sale Confirmed List for the first half of 2021, property services firm Cushman & Wakefield deemed them “quite attractive”, highlighting their proximity to Buona Vista MRT station and their potential to provide housing for workers in the growing biomedical and technology sectors.

Likewise, local real estate agency PropNex pointed to the “vibrant tech buzz” created by One North and its roster of science, tech and media tenants. “An enlarged population catchment would also create critical mass for developments and amenities in the vicinity, which include Fusionopolis, Star Vista mall, Holland Village and the upcoming Rochester Commons,” PropNex said.

Betting on the New Economy

One North’s future residential projects are set to add some living space to a burgeoning commercial cluster that has caught the attention of local developers and foreign fund managers alike.

In March 2020, SGX-listed developer Ho Bee Land won a tender for a 445,260 square foot biomedical facility in One North’s Biopolis centre after placing the high bid of S$223.6 million. Ho Bee said it planned to develop the 12-storey project into a community for researchers and entrepreneurs, targeting a 2022 completion date.

Last September, property giant CapitaLand unveiled its plans for the 400,000 square foot Rochester Commons, a campus-style integrated project featuring a 17-storey office tower, a shared executive learning centre and a business hotel run by CapitaLand’s Ascott hospitality arm.