The Verge, a struggling mall in Little India, is being sold for S$317 million to a company controlled by Keith Tang, grandson of CK Tang founder Tang Choon Keng and who owns a chain of hotels and serviced apartments in Australia and New Zealand. Mr Tang is expected to assemble a consortium for the purchase and redevelopment of The Verge, which is on a site with about 80 years' balance lease. He plans to...
Office / Retail Space
IN the heyday of the retail-property market, many landlords were eager to slice retail spaces into smaller units to lease out at higher rents per square foot. Now in the face of softening rents and dwindling tenant sales, some landlords are changing tack to lure back the bigger tenants they were once inclined to shoo away. While this curating of tenant mix may lend support to mall occupancies and...
THE rental gap between prime spaces in suburban malls and Orchard malls has been narrowing - and this trend is slated to continue into 2016. Property consultants noted that the relative resilience of suburban malls stems from their larger local catchment and lower susceptibility to tourist spending, which has been dealt a blow from lacklustre tourist arrivals and competition from other global cities for...
Real estate giant City Developments (CityDev) will inject three of its office properties into an investment platform, in a move that will free up hundreds of millions of dollars in funds for new investments. In a statement on Tuesday (Dec 15), CityDev said the three properties are Central Mall (Office Tower), 7 & 9 Tampines Grande and Manulife Centre. The properties - valued at around S$1.1 billion -...
Real estate fund manager M&G Real Estate will become the sole owner of Compass Point mall in Sengkang, after entering into a deed to buy the remaining 18.99 per cent of shares it does not already own. M&G said on Wednesday (Dec 16) it will be buying the shares from FCL Centrepoint, a subsidiary of Frasers Centrepoint. The transaction is expected to be completed in February next year, M&G added. FCL...
Dover Street Market, an edgy fashion retail and concept store conceived by Comme des Garçons’ Rei Kawakubo, will be opening its first Singapore outlet in Dempsey. The multi-brand store will be opening in one of two blocks on Dempsey Road, Block 17 and 18, which have been awarded to COMO Lifestyle in a tender to develop the site for retail and food and beverage (F&B) use. COMO Lifestyle scored the...
Orchard Central will be undergoing a revamp, its first since the mall opened in 2009. In a statement issued on Monday (Dec 14), Mr Eric Tong, assistant director of Far East Organization's Retail Business Group said works on the mall began in the fourth quarter of this year and will be completed in the third quarter of 2016. These include the introduction of new escalators and reconfigured walkways,...
The one-stop destination for electronic gadgets, Funan DigitaLife Mall, will close its shutters in the third quarter of next year as its owner, CapitaLand Mall Trust Management, has plans to turn it into a new integrated development over three years. The redevelopment of the shopping mall could potentially increase its floor area by as much as 80 per cent, according to property firm SLP International....
A YEAR ago, property consultants were predicting that Singapore office rentals would continue rising in 2015, albeit at a slower clip than last year. However soon after 2015 started, the mood dampened quickly on the back of weak demand - especially from financial institutions, the key constituent of CBD office demand - and ahead of a surge in office completions next year. Savills Singapore now...
Funan DigitaLife Mall on North Bridge Road - a shopping centre primarily known for shops selling computers and other electronic gadgets - will be closed from the third quarter of 2016, to be redeveloped into a "creative hub". The mall will be closed for about three years, said CapitaLand Mall Trust Management in a press release on Thursday (Dec 10). The real estate investment trust had hinted at such...