http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/prem...ender-20130128

Published January 28, 2013

Commercial property in Changi up for tender

Freehold 4-storey building on 18,000 sq ft plot expected to fetch over $62m

By ong chor hao


A FREEHOLD commercial property at the corner of Changi Road and Lorong 105 Changi has been put up for sale by tender.

No 160 Changi is offered for sale on a vacant possession basis, said its marketing agent Savills. This came after its owner, AIA Singapore, shifted operations that used to be housed there up until late last year to its other properties in Singapore.

"Freehold commercial sites are hard to come by and developers are always on the lookout for an opportunity such as this," said Steven Ming, deputy managing director and head of investments at Savills Singapore.

He expects the property to fetch in excess of $62 million.

No 160 Changi is currently a 4-storey building with two basement levels that include 23 carpark lots. It sits on a site area of about 18,000 square feet (sq ft) about 300 metres away from Eunos MRT station and has a permissible gross plot ratio of 3.0.

No development charge is payable on the property, which Savills said can be taken up by end users that need a corporate office building, or be redeveloped for strata sales for retail or office use.

A hotel could also be considered for the site, subject to approval by the relevant authorities, due to its commercial zoning.

Savills said this is the first significant freehold commercial property with potential for redevelopment to be launched this year, and believes the buyer will benefit from recent property cooling measures, which have largely spared commercial properties.

"The strata commercial market is expected to continue to trend upwards this year, as investor interest is diverted towards this market segment following (the) recent announcement of property cooling measures that makes it more challenging to be invested in residential and industrial properties," Mr Ming said.

For example, Savills noted that neither an additional buyer stamp duty nor seller stamp duties apply to the sale of No 160 Changi.

Furthermore, the buyer can gain from the upcoming Paya Lebar commercial hub nearby, which has 12 hectares of space available for development.

Savills also mentioned that there have been no notable launches of new strata commercial properties in the area for nearly a year.

Recent projects in the vicinity prior to that, including the Icon@Changi, Wis@Changi and Centropod@Changi, were able to fetch prices from about $2,300 per square foot (psf) to $4,300 psf.

The tender will close on March 8 at 4pm.