Punggol Digital District to open from Q3 with 65% of space pre-committed

The 50-ha district is the largest mixed-use Green Mark Platinum District in Singapore

May 16, 2024

PUNGGOL Digital District, a massive new business park campus coming up in north-eastern Singapore, will open progressively from the third quarter of the year, with some 65 per cent of space in eight towers pre-committed.

Billed as Singapore’s first smart and sustainable business district, the development will provide an ecosystem for key growth sectors in Singapore’s digital economy such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and robotics, fintech and smart living.

Construction work for five business park towers is targeted to be completed from September 2024, while three more buildings are expected to achieve the Temporary Occupation Permit by January 2025. At least two more towers are being planned.

The eight towers will add about 1.9 million square feet (sq ft) in net lettable area of office and business park space to the Punggol area, in a new town built out of what was originally farm land.

So far, 65 per cent of the space across these eight towers has been pre-committed, JTC said in response to queries from The Business Times. This includes business park, retail and office space.

“Tenants… include both private and public sector players such as UOB, GovTech, Cybersecurity Agency of Singapore, dConstruct Technologies, Delteq and Wanxiang Singapore. We are in advanced negotiations with other prospective tenants,” JTC said.

A new mall, named Punggol Coast Mall, as well as a serviced residence or hotel facing Coney Island are planned for the district. JTC plans to manage the 27,000 square metre mall, which is expected to be completed in phases from September 2024. The building housing the serviced residences or hotel is targeted to complete by January 2025.

An expression of interest exercise for the 200-room serviced residence or hotel closed in April and JTC is in the process of evaluating bids.

The first phase of the Punggol development straddles 21 hectares (ha) of land (including roads) and will offer over 3 million sq ft of gross floor area.

When fully opened, Punggol Digital District, which will include the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) campus, will be the largest mixed-use Green Mark Platinum District in Singapore. At 50 ha, the district is expected to create 28,000 jobs and accommodate 12,000 students.

The district will be served by the upcoming Punggol Coast MRT, a bus interchange and new bus stops. Two Build-to-Order (BTO) housing estates, Punggol Point Woods and Punggol Point Cove, are in the vicinity.

The Platinum award for Green Mark Districts is a recognition of the highest levels of environmentally friendly and sustainable practices put in place in the master planning, design and implementation of district developments, JTC said.

Nelson Liew, JTC’s group director of new estates, said: “Seamlessly integrating built structures, energy efficiency, water conservation, waste management, mobility solutions and green spaces, these sustainable features are intertwined on a district-wide scale through meticulous upfront planning, cultivating an estate that is not only highly liveable and environmentally sustainable, but also catering to the needs of those who work, live, play and learn within and around the district.”

The smart and sustainable initiatives implemented will act as a test bed for scaling up to all other JTC estates, contributing to Singapore’s national net-zero target by 2050, Liew added.

Businesses taking up space in Punggol Digital District will commit to sign green leases which would require them to operate sustainably. This could involve keeping their energy consumption levels reasonable and using appliances which are low in energy consumption, JTC said.

Passive design strategies and advanced mechanical and electrical systems will enable the district to achieve 35 per cent reduction in operational carbon emissions yearly, equivalent to taking 4,000 cars off the road.

One building, 86 Punggol Way, will be the tallest industrial building in Singapore constructed using timber. The eight-storey building achieves an embodied carbon performance which is 98 per cent lower than the benchmark level set for non-residential buildings.

And with the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, buildings could achieve up to 60 per cent energy savings, JTC said.

For instance, when smart sensors detect that fewer people are using the building, they may adjust the temperature of the room based on the occupancy level and temperature outside to reduce energy consumption.

These sensors will provide real-time data to the Open Digital Platform, which will connect building and district systems, serving as a digital backbone for the entire district.

Across the district, solar panels will be installed across rooftops producing over 3,000 megawatt-hours of clean energy annually, equivalent to the annual energy consumption of 11,000 three-room Housing and Development Board flats.

Punggol Digital District is designed to be car-lite and fully walkable. Its main roads are located along the edges of the district, while vehicular access roads, shared carparks and other service driveways are all underground.

In its first phase, Punggol Digital District will have 96 electric-vehicle charging lots, with electrical provisions built to ramp up to 151 lots in tandem with market demand.

A 1.3 km tree-lined heritage trail will run alongside buildings, with the rubber trees and sea apple trees growing along the old Punggol Road conserved. Four hectares of the site’s natural vegetation will also be retained as part of a community park. Rooftop urban farms are being prototyped for future phases.

Across the district, bioswales and rain gardens will capture rainwater for landscape irrigation and other uses. This is estimated to save 208,000 cubic metres of water annually, enough to fill 83 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The SIT campus in Punggol will open progressively from September. Some 8,900 students are expected to move to the new campus, with the move expected to be completed within 2025.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/pro...-pre-committed