GuocoLand, Guoco Group tie-up highest bidder for Beach Rd site at S$1.622b

A STATE tender for a plum 99-year leasehold commercial site at Beach Road has attracted five bids when its tender closed on Thursday. The top bid, from a joint venture between GuocoLand and Guoco Group, was S$1.622 billion, reflecting S$1,706 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr).

The other bidders included Kingsford Hurray Development and a consortium led by OUE. Cheung Kong Holdings-linked Japura Development also participated in the tender, which was conducted by Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). Far East Organization placed the lowest bid of about S$1.29 billion.

The two-hectare site can be developed into a maximum gross floor area (GFA) of 950,592 sq ft, of which at least 665,424 sq ft (70 per cent) must be for office use. The remaining GFA can be used for additional office, retail (subject to a maximum GFA of 32,292 sq ft), commercial school, hotel, serviced apartment or residential uses.

Apart from any GFA for hotel, serviced apartments or residential use, the rest of the development's GFA cannot have more than three strata lots, thus prohibiting strata sub-division of the office and retail components.

The former Beach Road Police Station sits on the site and the developer is expected to restore the conserved building. The developer is also required to build an underground pedestrian link to the nearby Bugis MRT station.

The site was first made available on the reserve list of the Government Land Sale Programme in November 2014. In June this year, URA announced that the site had been triggered for launch, with an unnamed developer that made the successful application undertaking to bid at least S$1.138 billion.