City Towers in Bukit Timah launches en bloc tender with S$355m reserve price

CITY Towers, a freehold property along Bukit Timah Road, will be launched for collective sale at an owners' reserve price of S$355 million.

This represents the owners' fourth attempt at a collective sale.

Marketing agent for the collective sale, Colliers International Group Inc, in a statement on Wednesday, added that the reserve price includes a development charge of S$3.505 million to intensify land use. This works out to a land rate of S$1,633 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr), which compares favourably to the S$1,840 psf ppr achieved for the collective sale of nearby Crystal Tower in December, the agent said.

Tang Wei Leng, Colliers International's managing director, said: "We think the high-end private residential market is poised for recovery after prices fell by about 20 per cent since June 2013. City Towers presents a good opportunity for developers to add a plum District 10 site to their portfolio in preparation for the potential pick-up in prime home prices in the coming years."

The freehold development - which was completed in the 1960s - comprises 77 units of apartments and maisonettes, a penthouse unit and a shop unit. Depending on the size of their property, each residential owner stands to receive S$2.45 million to S$10.17 million from the successful sale of the development. The amount is more than double the open market value of the individual units, Colliers said.

M Singh, chairman of the City Towers collective sale committee, said: "Within three short months, we were able to garner more than 80 per cent approval from owners to launch the tender. We have seen good collaborative spirit among the owners and this is largely due to the transparent and structured manner which Colliers ran the collective sale process."

The 17-storey City Towers sits on a regular land plot that spans 9,711.3 square metres (about 104,531 square feet) with a 65-metre frontage to Bukit Timah Road. It is zoned "Residential" and has a gross plot ratio of 2.1 under the Master Plan 2014.

Subject to relevant approvals from the authorities, the site can potentially be redeveloped to a 24-storey apartment block offering about 190 new homes - at an average size of 1,098 sq ft - on the proposed total Gross Floor Area of 20,393.7 sq m (about 219,516 sq ft).

Ms Tang said: "The upscale Bukit Timah area, which is a stone's throw from Orchard Road, has seen several collective sales recently, including Crystal Tower and Royalville. The City Towers location is also near a cluster of distinguished schools steeped in history which will appeal to future homebuyers with school-going children."

City Towers is near Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road), Singapore Chinese Girls' School and St Joseph's Institution. Amenities within the property's vicinity including restaurants at Balmoral Plaza are also within easy reach.