Concorde Hotel and Shopping Centre up for collective sale at S$820 million
CONCORDE Hotel and Shopping Centre, an Orchard Road property majority-held by Ong Beng Seng’s Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL), has gone on the market at a guide price of S$820 million.
The mixed use development sits on a 99,623 square feet (sq ft) site at 100 Orchard Road, zoned for hotel use, with height control of up to 10 storeys. The property currently comprises a three-storey retail podium and a 407-room hotel.
At S$820 million, Concorde Hotel and Shopping Centre is being marketed at about S$1,801 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr), said marketing agent Savills Singapore on Tuesday (Sep 3). That per square foot land cost builds in a S$213.1 million premium to top up the lease to a fresh 99 years, and assumes the site is rebuilt to include a hotel on 40 per cent of the gross floor area, residential use for another 40 per cent of GFA, and commercial use for the remaining 20 per cent. The property has about 54 years left on its lease.
HPL, the listed property company owned by tycoon Ong Beng Seng, owns the hotel and 63 out of 97 of the strata retail units, Savills said in response to queries from The Business Times.
If the en bloc sale is successful, shop owners stand to get between S$746,000 and S$12.1 million. HPL, which owns more than 80 per cent of the entire property, could get over S$650 million from the sale, assuming a deal is done at the guide price of S$820 million.
The property standing on the Concorde site was formerly the Meridien Hotel. According to archived information, the Meridien at Orchard Road, along with one in Changi, were owned by Indonesian tycoon Hendra Rahardja. During the economic recession of the 1980s, the hotels were put into receivership. The Meridien property at Orchard Road was bought over by an Ong Beng Seng-led group in 1989 for S$180 million, according to previous reports. After the brand eventually exited from Singapore, HPL took over the management of the property, renaming it Concorde Hotel Singapore in 2008.
Besides Concorde Hotel and Shopping Centre, HPL owns Forum The Shopping Mall, voco Orchard Singapore and HPL House, which sit on land parcels on a prime corner of Orchard Road and Cuscaden Road. The group had received the green light from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) last August for a proposal to redevelop the three assets into a mixed-use project with a hotel and luxury residences as well as retail and office components.
Reshaping Orchard Road retail
Singapore’s prime retail belt is set to be reshaped, with several buildings sold in the last few years and other assets put on the market.
In April, Delfi Orchard was sold to City Developments Ltd (CDL) for S$439 million, or SS$3,346 psf ppr. Before that, Ming Arcade was sold for S$172 million, or S$3,125 psf ppr in December 2022. HPL, which owned seven units at the commercial complex, received S$61 million from the sale.
In the same year, the freehold Tanglin Shopping Centre was sold to Pacific Eagle Real Estate held by the Tanoto family for S$$868 million or S$2,769 psf.
While there was an attempt by Far East Shopping Centre to go en bloc earlier this year, it was not successful.
A S$910 million offer from a company linked to Chinese businessman Du Shuanghua’s Bright Ruby Resources fell through after the buyer failed to get approval from the URA to extend the site’s gross floor area in its proposed redevelopment, under the government’s Strategic Development Incentive scheme.
BT also understands that the freehold retail podium at Scotts Square, that was put up for sale in January 2024 is no longer on the market. Owner Wharf Estates Singapore is said to have decided not to sell the asset after a tender closed in February with no takers at the S$450 million guide price.
Orchard Towers’ owners had also formed a collective sale committee in 2022 in a bid for a potential S$1.6 billion en bloc sale, which would have been Singapore’s most expensive collective sale, but failed to obtain consent from 80 per cent of owners.
A major revamp of Orchard Road to rejuvenate the precinct was announced in 2019 by the Singapore Tourism Board, URA and the National Parks Board.
One of the suggestions by the authorities was to connect Istana Park, which is in the vicinity of Concorde Hotel and Shopping Centre, with Dhoby Ghaut Green and the open space at Plaza Singapura by pedestrianising a section of the road.
Jeremy Lake, managing director of investment sales and capital markets at Savills Singapore, said: “Concorde Hotel and Shopping Centre is strategically placed and poised to benefit from this transformation, being the key major gateway project that will connect Dhoby Ghaut to the upper stretch of Orchard Road.”
“The Concorde Hotel and Shopping Centre has been a central part of Orchard Road for decades, and its redevelopment will usher in a new era of growth and revitalisation for the area.”
Lake added that an outline planning application has already been submitted to the authorities for a 10-storey mixed-use redevelopment scheme comprising hotel, commercial and residential use. Concorde Hotel and Shopping Centre has a development baseline of 539,719 sq ft, which is equivalent to a plot ratio of 5.41, below the site’s approved master plan plot ratio of 5.6.
“The buyer may also consider submitting an alternative outline planning application for a different use mix,” he said.
The tender for Concorde Hotel and Shopping Centre will close at 3 pm on Oct 16.
