Far East Shopping Centre debuts collective sale at $928 million
Far East Shopping Retail Building, which has a 999-years’ lease from 1871, sits on a 36,014 sq ft site located at 545 Orchard Road and is zoned for commercial use is up for collective sales. It has a 75m frontage along Orchard Road and a 55m frontage along Angullia Park in premium locale 9 District.is up for tender via collective sale exclusively managed by CBRE agency with price tag of $928 million on July 25. The commercial building with strata title, developed in 1974, has a five-storey retail podium with multiple configurations of 216 individual retail centre, a 10-storey office block with 80 strata-titled office units and two level of underground parking space.
Famous and known by many of commercial units shops selling consumer electronics and sport gears. a family-run jewellery business, House of Hung Jewelleries, has been there since 1975. a Russian-Hainanese restaurant, Shashlik Restaurant, has been on the sixth floor of Far East Shopping Centre for more than three decades. Till date as of today, most of the spaces are mostly operated by tour guides companies, money exchangers, artist studios and facial salons.
the Ng family-controlled Far East Organization, which is also one of the builders, one of the major stakeholders on Orchard Road, the 298-unit strata-titled, mixed-use development cost $20 million to build. Far East Shopping Centre was considered the most prominent commercial complex in the area in the 1970s. It was built in response to the Singapore government’s call to develop Orchard Road into a prime shopping and tourist strip. The developer still has a stake of over 30% in the building in terms of share value.
Accelerated and triggered off this year, Far East Shopping Centre enbloc started last year June, and by June 24 this year, it had garnered 80% support from the strata-titled unit owners. “In a typical process of enbloc, a timeframe of 1 year to sell,” says Michael Tay, head of Singapore capital markets, CBRE. “In this instance, it’s a short-fuse collective sale, as we have to launch the collective sale and sell the site by the end of the year so that the buyer has time to submit the Outline Planning Permission for the new integrated development to URA.”
To qualify for the SDI Scheme, URA has stipulated that “all relevant property owners” of 545 Orchard Road and the adjacent properties have to submit a joint Outline Application for a joint redevelopment proposal by Dec 31, 2023. They must obtain the relevant Provisional or Written Permission by Dec 31, 2024.
