NIGHTLIFE entrepreneur Michael Ma, who runs the IndoChine group in Singapore and elsewhere, is going into hotel management with the setting up of a joint venture to be known as the LaTour IndoChine Hotel Group. It will be headquartered in Singapore. The hotel management company is designed to provide wide-ranging expertise to developers entering the realm of boutique hotels, six-star hotels as well as...
2009
ORCHARD Road, Singapore's most famous retail belt, is set to be the densest shopping street in the region, according to the Orchard Road Business Association. With three new mega-malls scheduled to open for business by the end of the year, about 1.8 million sq ft of new retail space will be added, bringing the total space available on Orchard Road to 8 million sq ft. And the 2.2km stretch of road is also...
There has been a huge spike in activity in the investment sales market in Singapore during the second quarter this year. According to property consultancy CB Richard Ellis, total property investment sales in the period so far have amounted to some S$954 million. The amount is up by more than three times from the previous quarter. CBRE said Thursday the good showing was due to the sharp recovery in the...
CapitaCommercial Trust said on Thursday its S$828-million rights issue has been oversubscribed. The offer closed on Wednesday, and final results will be released soon. CapitaCommercial had launched the rights issue in May, offering one rights unit for every existing unit at 59 cents each. The proceeds from the rights issue are to be used to reduce borrowings and for general corporate and working capital...
The government will launch a tender for a hotel site at New Bridge Road in two weeks' time, after a developer committed to at least S$43,888,888 for the land parcel. The site is under the Reserve List of the Government Land Sales programme. It has an area of about 0.45 hectares and will be able to generate a maximum permissible gross floor area of about 15,687 square metres with a lease period of 99...
Resorts World at Sentosa has cut its visitor arrivals forecast to 13 million visitors during its first year of operations, down from an earlier estimate of 15 million, due to the global financial meltdown. The operator is also projecting a lowered 13 per cent internal rate of return for the integrated resort. The resort is still very much a work in progress, but Resorts World at Sentosa said it expects...
ION Orchard is set to be only the second new mall to open on Orchard Road in the past decade on July 21, but it will face competition from new malls springing up along the iconic shopping belt in the next few months. The shopping centre said it is looking to stand out from the rest through the use of technology, such as a multi-media wall that can change the appearance of Orchard Road. It said it will be...
Consider this: Rentals are sliding while residential property sales continue to scale new heights in the current troubled times. With almost half of recent buyers being potential investors with private addresses, could these people be punting on a rental recovery? If so, they may be staring at a wait of several years for the uptick. "I don't expect any rental recovery for the rest of this year," said...
As buyers thronged showflats amid improved sentiment in recent months, the resale market also saw an uptick in the second quarter, according to a report by Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL). Using recent housing data, the consultancy estimated that resale volumes increased more than 70 per cent from the first quarter to reach 1,464 transactions. The two main reasons were pent-up demand from Housing Development...
WE REFER to the letter "Our tarnished heritage" (June 17) and thank the residents of Tiong Bahru for their feedback. On the feedback that the STB has allowed Hotel 81 to operate in close proximity to the Tiong Bahru residential area, we would like to clarify that no licence has been issued for the hotel to start operations in Tiong Bahru. Before they begin operations, hotel developments must be licensed...