Size of winning bid colours green
project
CityDev consortium clinches deal while a bigger bid fails to make
the cut
By KALPANA RASHIWALA
(SINGAPORE) As a new symbol of environmentally-friendly
architecture was unveiled yesterday, green became the topic of
discussion in more ways than one. The award of the former NCO
Club/Beach Road camp grounds to a City Developments consortium was
accompanied by a tinge of envy as observers pointed out that the
winning land bid of nearly $1.69 billion is believed to be around
$500 million lower than the top bid, which was not even
short-listed under the two-envelope tender.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority chose to first evaluate the
various concepts before looking at the money on the table.
CityDev and its partners Istithmar (part of the Dubai World Group)
and El-Ad Group are expected by market watchers to invest a total
sum of $2.5 billion or more in the project. They plan to develop
two towers (45- and 42-storeys high) - that are expected to house
two luxury hotels, offices and apartments - and restore four
conservation buildings (for retail and hotel-related uses like
function rooms).
The cutting-edge green features in the Foster &
Partners-designed scheme include slanting facades for the towers to
catch winds and direct air flow to ground-level spaces, a canopy
covering open areas, linking conservation buildings with two
high-rise towers and providing shelter from the elements and
drawing air currents to cool the area beneath it. And water will be
collected off the towers and the canopy to flow into a holding tank
underground, instead of being wasted.
The development, to be called South Beach, is set to become a
'revolutionary New Eco-Quarter in Singapore' when it is completed
by 2012, CityDev said.
Still, the price of the winning bid came under some scrutiny.
Of the seven bids on the table, only two - that of the CityDev
consortium and a joint venture between Keppel Land and Cheung Kong
Holdings - made it past the concept evaluation stage. That is when
URA moved onto the second stage of the two-envelope process to
award the tender to the higher bidder.
The Keppel Land-Cheung Kong bid was worth $1.39 billion while the
CityDev consortium's bid of $1.69 billion was comfortably higher
and clinched the deal for it. The winning bid for the 3.5 hectare
plot with a 99-year leasehold tenure worked out to $1,069 per
square foot of potential gross floor area.
The top bid, believed to be more than $2 billion, had come from one
of the other five who tendered but did not make it past the concept
stage. They included: a JV between Pontiac Land Group and Morgan
Stanley; CapitaLand; another JV between Keppel Land and Cheung
Kong; and two bids by Overseas Union Enterprise.
URA said that overall, the CityDev consortium's concept proposal
offers a 'compelling and attractive scheme' that would create a
'truly distinctive development and an exemplary showcase of 'green'
architecture in Singapore'.
CityDev executive chairman Kwek Leng Beng said: 'We are confident
that South Beach will elevate Singapore's unique branding as a
global city and help attract more prominent investors from all over
the world.'
CityDev, Istithmar and El-Ad will each hold a one-third stake in
the project. CityDev is no stranger to its partners. El-Ad is a US
property investment group controlled by Yitzhak Tshuva, to whom
CityDev's hotel arm Millennium & Copthorne Hotels sold its
stake in The Plaza hotel in New York in August 2004. City
e-Solutions, a hospitality business unit of CityDev's parent Hong
Leong Group, and Istithmar are partners in a venture that plans to
open no-frills hotels in Southeast Asia under Tony Fernandes's Tune
Hotels.Com brand.
The development on the 3.5 hectare Beach Road site will be directly
next to the Circle Line Esplanade MRT Station and will also be
linked by an underground pedestrian network to the existing City
Hall MRT Interchange Station. The site can be developed into a
maximum gross floor area of 1.58 million sq ft. CB Richard Ellis
executive director Li Hiaw Ho reckoned that the developers will
sell the apartments to help part-finance the project.
URA said the attractive first-storey layout in the winning scheme
includes a series of internal streets, sunken courtyards and tiered
gardens lined with shops, and food and beverage outlets. It said
the development will be potentially able to achieve a Green Mark
Platinum rating, the highest here for buildings that feature
energy-efficient, water-efficient and environmentally-friendly
design.
'The undulating geometry of the environmental filter canopy is
designed to help induce cooling air currents through the spaces
below' and the canopy as well as building facades will incorporate
photovoltaic cells (solar cells), it added.
