Pender Court, off West Coast Highway and near the Caribbean and Reflections at Keppel Bay condos, has been sold for $80 million or about $872 psf of potential gross floor area. No development charge (DC) is payable.

The unit land price for Pender Court surpasses the last collective sale transaction in the location - that of Fairways Condo which was sold in May for about $785 psf per plot ratio, inclusive of DC and the cost of buying an adjoining piece of state land.

Cushman & Wakefield brokered the collective sale of Pender Court through a private treaty deal inked earlier this week. The 65,480 sq ft freehold site is designated for residential use with a 1.4 plot ratio (ratio of maximum potential gross floor area to land area) and a five-storey maximum height under Master Plan 2003.

The buyer is Bravo Building Construction, which plans to redevelop the freehold plot into an 80-unit condo slated for launch in the second quarter next year. ‘We should easily be able to sell at an average price of $1,800 psf,’ Bravo director Jenny Tan told BT. She reckons Bravo’s breakeven cost for the project will be around $1,200 psf.

‘The site has excellent ‘feng shui’, with the front facing the sea and having Mount Faber as its backdrop. We’re looking for an architectural firm to design a resort-style boutique condo on this site,’ Mrs Tan added.

Bravo, a five-year-old outfit involved in the construction and property development business, has bought some 15 sites in Singapore since September last year. The sites are predominantly residential plots purchased through collective sales and are mostly located in the eastern part of the island. Most of the sites have land areas of 30,000 to 45,000 sq ft. These include Castle Court at Changi Road, Regent Court in Serangoon and Koon Seng House in the Still Road area. The gross development value of the group’s Singapore residential landbank is around $800 million. ‘We will start launching residential projects from November this year,’ Mrs Tan said.

First off will be an 80-unit condo on the Koon Seng House site, and a residential and small office, home office (Soho) project on the Castle Court plot.

Mrs Tan reveals that Bravo was the party that earlier this week sold eight freehold semi-detached houses along Mountbatten Road to Lian Beng Group for $42 million. The eight houses can be redeveloped into a condominium.

Mrs Tan also said that Bravo was the highest tenderer in a Singapore Land Authority tender to lease the former CPIB Building at 150 Cantonment Road on a monthly rental offer of $1.88 psf of gross floor area. ‘If we are awarded this building, we can fit it out as high-tech offices in about three months. We could have about 45,000 sq ft net lettable area of office space,’ Mrs Tan said.

Pender Court’s collective sale is subject to approval from the Strata Titles Board. Owners of the existing 48 apartments will each receive over $1.6 million, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Source: The Business Times, 06 July 2007