A Housing & Development Board (HDB) site that was deferred for public tender last December has now been launched for sale.
HDB on Monday put up the mixed commercial and residential site at Upper Serangoon Road for sale under the confirmed list of the government land sales (GLS) programme.
As part of the development of Bidadari estate, the 99-year leasehold site was deferred to allow the site requirements to be finalised for “comprehensive development”.
HDB said that this was mainly to straighten out details for the requirements to build a community club and a neighbourhood police centre to be integrated with the development.
These are new criteria and therefore needed time to be clarified. There are also criteria to build a commercial bridge and underpass for connectivity purposes.
In addition, the successful tenderer is also “strongly encouraged” to work with the tenants and operators of the shops, restaurants and entertainment outlets to adopt productive formats suggested by Spring Singapore to raise the productivity of its food services and retail outlets.
These include having a central kitchen and central dishwashing, and installing meal replacement vending machines, among other initiatives.
When the deferment of the site was announced just two days to the end of the year, some consultants correctly guessed that it could be because the government may require the developer to build certain facilities to serve the residents, but they thought it could have been a childcare centre or public library.
At the time, they noted that it was rare for the authorities to defer the tender of a site so close to its launch date. There have been previous deferments of the launch of GLS sites, though they are few and far between.
Consultants have called this a “choice” site, given its location next to Woodleigh MRT Station and buyers’ attraction to Bidadari as a residential locality.
The plot has an area of 25,440.8 square metres, which can yield a maximum gross floor area of 89,043 sq m (or 958,450 square feet). It can yield about 825 housing units. The tender will close at noon on June 13, 2017.
JLL national director Ong Teck Hui noted that Bidadari has the makings of a new prime city-fringe sub-market, “so the subject site is in a highly desired location and being next to Woodleigh MRT Station, it will be a strong draw for home buyers as well as tenants of commercial units”.
“The only deterrent to interested parties would be the high absolute land price as the development quantum is close to a million square feet,” he added.
The top bid could be S$800-900 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr), so the absolute land price could range from S$766-863 million, said Mr Ong. He expects seven to 10 bids.
SLP International executive director Nicholas Mak envisages around eight to 16 bids with the highest offer coming in at S$710-750 psf ppr – translating to an absolute land price of S$680.5 million to S$719 million.
“Presently, this is the only mixed commercial and residential site next to the Woodleigh MRT Station available for sale.
The future shopping centre on this site should attract a high number of residents from the Bidadari Estate. It would also enjoy the first-mover advantage as the first shopping centre in the Bidadari Estate,” said Mr Mak.
This is probably the first time that the government has required the developer of a GLS site to build a neighbourhood police centre within the development for the government, he added.
leemx@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on Mar 07, 2017.
Get The Business Times for more stories.
