Developer Wheelock Properties has secured Hermes as the maiden tenant for its Scotts Square retail podium which is slated to open by Christmas next year.
Hermes will occupy a 3,000 sq ft ground-floor corner unit.
This will be Hermes’ fourth outlet in Singapore – after Liat Towers, Takashimaya Department Store, and The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands.
The Liat Towers store will remain open even after Hermes opens its new Scotts Square boutique, said Hermes’ managing director Alvin de Souza.
The new store will carry a full assortment of Hermes merchandise including silk, leather, ready-to-wear, fashion accessories, fine jewellery, watches, perfumes, home, and equestrian.
‘As with all other Hermes stores in Singapore, there will be a full assortment of merchandise but the percentage mix for each category will be unique to each store,’ Mr de Souza said.
Wheelock executive director Tan Bee Kim is relatively confident that the mall’s 75,000 sq ft net lettable area will be fully leased by the time it opens ‘because we offer a unique proposition, which is we are a boutique, well- located shopping centre’.
Tenants in the retail and services trades will make up about 70-75 per cent of the high-end mall’s net lettable area, with food and beverage outlets (restaurants but not a food court) accounting for the rest.
She said she is not precluding a gourmet mart and upscale home furnishings outlet at the mall.
There will be about 60 shops if units are not amalgamated. Unit sizes start from about 800 sq ft plus.
The mall’s shopper catchment is likely to include guests from the two hotels on either side – Grand Hyatt and Marriott – as well as residents in the 338 apartments in part of the Scotts Square development, along with other residents in surrounding locations like Cairnhill, Draycott, and Ardmore Park.
The mall will have four levels (from Basement 1 to Level 3) and 80-plus carpark lots in Basement 2.
Wheelock will charge tenants at Scotts Square mall either a fixed monthly rental rate or a percentage (ranging from about one to 20 per cent) of gross turnover, whichever is higher.
The fixed monthly rental rates will range from $50- plus psf to about $70 psf for ground floor shops. Second- and third-floor units will have rents of about $15-30 psf, while rates for units in Basement 1 will be about $15-20 psf.
There will be a connection to Tang Plaza and Orchard MRT station at Basement 1.
On the mall’s exterior, an 11m-high glass promotion wall will serve as a distinctive and versatile marketing and advertising stage for retailers. It will wrap around the front of the building from levels four to six.
Wheelock has invested about $6.4 million acquiring four sculptures from world-renowned artists to adorn the Scotts Square development.
At the main entrance along Scotts Road, the triple-volume space will be accentuated by the Victoria & Albert Museum Chandelier 1999 by Dale Chihuly.
Henry Moore’s Working Model for Sheep Piece 1971 and Bernar Venet’s Three Indeterminate Lines 1994 will grace the mall’s promenade while Salvador Dali’s Alice in Wonderland will adorn the entrance of the residential towers at the rear of Scotts Square.
About 70 per cent of the 338 freehold apartments in the development have been sold at an average price of $3,992 per square foot. ‘We just sold one unit last week for $4,360 psf,’ Ms Tan said.
A Singaporean buyer picked up the 624-sq ft, one-bedroom apartment on the 38th floor for $2.72 million.
Of the remaining units, most of which are on the upper floors, the highest priced among them would be about $4,600 psf, for a one-bedder.
Scotts Square is developed on the former Scotts Shopping Centre and The Ascott Singapore service residences site, which Wheelock bought for $345 million in 2004 from The Ascott Group, on the eve of a boom in luxury residential property prices.
Construction costs for the project will be about $168 million.