Kentish Green, St Thomas Ville try for collective sale again

Wed, Feb 27, 2019


KENTISH Green at 20 Oxford Road has been put up for collective sale with a S$200 million reserve price. Its owners had previously asked for at least S$230 million for the site.

Similarly, owners of St Thomas Ville, located along 38 St Thomas Walk, are again eyeing at least S$58 million for the District 9 property. The 23-unit freehold property was up for sale in August 2018, but the tender was called off due to delays in verification of technical details, stretching late into the year-end holiday season.

The 122-unit Kentish Green, with an area of 59,165 square feet (sq ft), has a current balance lease of 76 years. The buyer will have to pay a premium to top up the lease to a fresh 99 years, estimated at about S$20 million, subject to further assessment and increase of plot ratio.

Based on the S$200 million reserve price, each owner can net between S$1.5 million and S$1.8 million from a successful sale.

Kentish Green's collective sale committee had been told by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) that it had potential permission to increase development parameters. This includes an increase of its plot ratio from 2.8 to 3.0, an increase of height from six storeys to potentially 28 and an added commercial component of 0.3 per cent of the gross floor area.

The site is close to Farrer Park MRT Station and adjacent to an empty plot that will be the Russian Cultural Centre, which houses a Russian Orthodox Church.

The tender opens on Feb 28 and closes on March 28 at 4pm.

The collective sale committee of St Thomas Ville has decided on a new launch after receiving more than 80 per cent of owners' consent.

Its S$58 million reserve price works out to S$1,816 per sq ft per plot ratio (psf ppr) before factoring in any bonus balcony. There will be no development charge payable for intensification of the site due to a high development baseline. This includes a bonus gross floor area of up to 10 per cent.

Under the URA's 2014 Master Plan, St Thomas Ville's 11,407 sq ft site is zoned "residential" with a gross plot ratio of 2.8 and has an allowable height of up to 36 storeys. The Land Transport Authority has said that the site is not subject to a pre-application feasibility study. Since it is located within the central area, the guideline on minimum average size of 85 square metres is also not applicable.

The site is near Great World City and the Orchard Road shopping district. It is also close to established primary and international schools such as River Valley Primary School and Chatsworth International School.

Tender for the site closes on March 27, 3pm.

"Units at nearby 8 St Thomas and newly launched RV Altitude have average prices of about S$3,220 and S$2,890 psf respectively, signifying the continued interest and demand in private residential units located in prime district 9," said Tan Hong Boon, executive director of Capital Markets at JLL Singapore, the marketing agent for St Thomas Ville.