Daily Archives: 5 Sep 2009

CapLand to unveil 2 more home launches

SINGAPORE’S largest property developer CapitaLand is set to roll out two more residential launches this year – the 1,040-unit The Interlace on the site of the former Gillman Heights, and a 165-apartment luxury project in Cairnhill Road on the site of the former Char Yong Gardens.

The company yesterday unveiled the design for the The Interlace, which it is developing with Hotel Properties Ltd. The project will cost about $1.4 billion all up, including the $548 million – or $363 per sq ft of potential gross floor area – paid for Gillman Heights in 2007

Prices could start from about $700,000 for a two-bedroom apartment, CapitaLand said. The project will be launched next month.

The Interlace was designed by Ole Scheeren, a partner at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture – the firm behind the design of the distinct 54-storey China Central Television Station headquarters in Beijing. For The Interlace, Mr Scheeren wanted to break away from the standard kind of residential project in Singapore comprising a cluster of isolated, vertical towers.

Instead, the design for The Interlace explores a new take on tropical living with an expansive and interconnected network of communal spaces. Thirty-one apartment blocks, each six stories tall, will be stacked in a hexagonal arrangement to form eight large-scale courtyards. The interlocking blocks will resemble a ‘vertical village’ with cascading sky gardens and private and public roof terraces. Continue reading

Deals stay hot on bungalow fever

Good times continue to roll for the Good Class Bungalow (GCB) market, with some high-profile business personalities involved in the latest transactions. They include palm oil giant Wilmar International’s chairman and CEO, Kuok Khoon Hong, and Prima Group boss Bernard Cheng.

The latest deals have boosted the volume of GCB transactions between January and August this year to about 60 deals with a total value of around $900 million, surpassing the $830 million transacted in the whole of last year, latest figures from CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) show. The actual year-to-date numbers could be higher if caveats for some deals done in August have still not been lodged, suggest property market watchers.

CBRE’s director, luxury homes, Douglas Wong is now predicting record GCB sales totalling $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion for the whole of this year, encompassing 80-90 transactions – up from his earlier forecast of around $1.1 billion-$1.2 billion made just three weeks ago. Up to now, the highest full-year value of GCB transactions was achieved in 2006 – involving $1.23 billion across 119 deals.

Savills Singapore director of investment sales & prestige homes Steven Ming said that while the GCB market remains active, ‘buyers continue to approach purchases with measured optimism and are sensitive to price increases’. Continue reading