Chip Eng Seng to buy Changi Garden for S$248.8m, 27% above asking price

PROPERTY developer Chip Eng Seng will buy the Changi Garden retail and residential estate for S$248.8 million after wining an en bloc tender.

The purchase price is about 27 per cent above the asking price of S$196 million and works out to S$888 per square foot per plot ratio (psr ppr).

The freehold development comprises 60 apartments, 12 penthouses and 12 shops. Each apartment owner in the estate will receive between S$2.14 million and S$2.27 million, agent Edmund Tie & Co said. Each penthouse owner will receive between S$4.03 million and S$4.74 million, and each shop owner will receive between S$4.7 million and S$7.08 million.

The property sits on a 18,589.30 square metre site at the junction of Upper Changi Road North and Jalan Mariam, and its maximum allowable gross floor area of 26,025.02 sq m represents a gross plot ratio of 1.4 times. Chip Eng Seng said that it plans to redevelop the property into a low-rise residential condominium with full facilities, with an expected 320 residential units and several retail shops.

Changi Garden was put up for collective sale in September, which at the time made it the 15th residential en bloc attempt this year. According to the Urban Redevelopment Authority's Master Plan 2014, it is zoned "residential". Due to the high development baseline, no development charge (DC) is payable, Edmund Tie said.

DC is a tax payable to the state as a result of the state approving a development proposal that will increase the land value of a site, that is, when it increases the intensity or plot ratio.

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