A HOTEL development site at Sturdee Road has been put on the reserve list of the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme.

A HOTEL development site at Sturdee Road has been put on the reserve list of the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme.

The site is one of the four new hotel sites on the GLS programme for the second half of this year.

There are already five hotel sites on the reserve list, with two more expected by the end of the year.

The 0.61 ha site could go for between $430-$450 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr), it is reckoned by Donald Han, managing director at Cushman & Wakefield.

Mr Han noted that a white site at Race Course Road recently sold for $430 psf ppr in September. He said: ‘The Race Course Road hotel site may be located nearer to the MRT station than the Sturdee Road site, but hotel market sentiment is increasingly more optimistic now, judging from higher than expected bid prices for the Upper Pickering Street site.’

The site mentioned went to Hotel Plaza for $253.2 million or $805 psf ppr.

Other recent successful hotel site tenders include one on Tanjong Pagar Road/Gopeng Street awarded to Carlton Properties for $123 million, or $573 psf ppr in June. In July, a site at Tras Street went to businessman Chng Gim Huat of the CGH Group for $97.1 million, or $562 psf ppr.

The Sturdee Road site has maximum permissible gross floor area (GFA) of 18,334 sq m and can yield an estimated 430 hotel rooms.

A minimum of 60 per cent of the total GFA must be used for hotel rooms or hotel-related uses. The rest can be for commercial, and/or residential uses.

So far, the other hotel site put on the reserve list for H2′07 is at Jalan Bukit Merah/Alexandra Road.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority withdrew a hotel site at Balestier Road/Ah Hood Road from the reserve list this month.

About 9,100 new hotel rooms are expected to be completed from the second half of 2007 to 2010. This includes the supply of new hotel rooms from the two integrated resorts, Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World at Sentosa, which are expected to be completed in 2009 and 2010.

Source : Business Times - 17 Oct 2007