Transforming Singapore’s state properties into great spaces
The Singapore Land Authority manages some 11,000 hectares of state land and 2,600 state buildings, and is looking at ways to optimise and rejuvenate some of these heritage buildings
[SINGAPORE] The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) manages a wide range of state properties. Its mission lies in optimising land resources for the nation’s economic and social development. Is the SLA different from a private property landlord? How does the SLA transform properties into great spaces? BT senior correspondent Leslie Yee spoke to Carrie Wong, director of business planning and development, SLA in his PropertyBT podcast. We reproduce excerpts from the podcast here.
Carrie Wong: Singapore is a very small city-state where land is a very strategic resource for the country. We, the SLA, are the custodian of state land and buildings. We manage approximately 11,000 hectares of state land and 2,600 state buildings. We are very much guided by our own vision: limited land, unlimited spaces.
We are also looking at ways to optimise and rejuvenate some of these heritage buildings. When there’s no immediate development plans for them, we will, as much as possible, put them out for what we call interim use. Through adaptive reuse in the interim, we hope to create value for our people, make use of all these state properties and connect the community.
Leslie Yee: Many of us live in high-rise HDB or condo blocks. I think it may be fun to live in an old house – like the residential properties that SLA manages – which was built before Singapore was independent. Escape the hustle and bustle of modern urban Singapore by living in an enclave of all landed homes with one’s own garden. Sounds rather enticing. Who helps manage and market SLA’s residential properties?
CW: These are the heritage houses, as well as walk-up apartments (such as those) in Monk’s Hill. Built in the colonial days, they... come with very rich, rustic charm. They are managed by agents appointed by SLA. The agents look after the general leasing matters, such as renewal of tenancies, marketing vacant units, and operational matters like maintenance of common areas, and so forth.
LY: Is maintaining such colonial era black-and-white homes costly? What’s the thinking behind keeping such homes instead of freeing up land occupied by these homes for more intensive use?
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CW: Heritage houses are important to Singapore’s culture and heritage, so much so that it is important to preserve some of them. It is also a Singapore story to tell.
Recently, we pivoted one or two of these black-and-white houses along Orange Grove Road and Goodwood Hill to low-key office use. We talked to a lot of businesses, and we realised there is demand – for a family office, for example.
We also looked at how we can cluster these heritage houses into a gated community for co-living. Admiralty at Sembawang is one example that SLA launched to encourage multi-generation co-living concepts.
LY: How important is the amount of rent that these properties generate? After all, the state will seek to generate good financial returns from its properties. For properties that are let out for commercial uses, do you focus mainly on the rental collected? What considerations are there?
CW: We are the statutory board. We go beyond just talking about maximising rental and revenue collection. We also consider how these state properties can be activated to promote social good and bring value to the community. We are moving away from just calling a price tender where highest bidders will win the tender. We call a price and quality tender, where we can place a quality component at a higher weightage.
Very importantly, we encourage a placemaking component in our price and quality tenders. We will look at how the tenderers will draw footfall, inject vibrancy into the state property. It’s always nice to see a very nicely renovated heritage building, but you need the soul.
I share an example – New Bahru. It’s the old Nan Chiau school, which has now successfully been transformed into a lifestyle destination. A space housing almost 40 local homegrown brands, ranging from F&B (food and beverage) to art and craft. It is very encouraging that we enable and transform a space to bring people together, to bring youngsters together.
LY: New Bahru is very much a go-to place. What is your take (on the F&B scene)? Are high rentals in Singapore suffocating the F&B industry? And can SLA do more to help create a thriving F&B scene here for locals as well as visitors?
CW: When we let out our state property by the price and quality tender, we look at not just the price component, but really the quality, the placemaking. For example, Kada, the Kadayanallur Street property, which was a former St Andrew’s missionary hospital.
There are a lot of new F&B startups that sprouted in Kada. I see a few cafes run by very young entrepreneurs. We thought the state property really presented a good opportunity to help them pilot some of the concepts in a little pocket of space within the master tenant operator model.
LY: Obviously you’re a very responsible landlord. Do you think that some of the private property landlords should learn from you and not be so fixated on just rent alone?
CW: As government, we do our best. We are not looking out just for ourselves, but for the people of Singapore. We want to also make sure that these spaces are provided to meet community needs.
LY: Managing properties calls for creativity. A building might be just a rectangular concrete block. A well-managed building can come alive. What is the secret?
CW: At SLA, we proactively and extensively engage the public, the businesses and different kinds of stakeholders to really understand what is the current trend. For example, co-living is a very new kind of trend. So we said, let’s try. We identified a few suitable state properties, for example, shophouses along Hindu Road. (It was) pretty successful.
One thing led to another. We heard from stakeholders that there are independent seniors looking for more diverse accommodation choices outside their homes. Ah, let’s try a multi-generation co-living concept. We had 98 Henderson Road which is an old school building, the former Henderson Primary. Today, you go there, you can see young foreign students playing pickleball together with the “ah mas”, the grannies.
We want to see things like that... enabling state property spaces, (building) community and having very positive impact.
LY: I’m curious, why would older Singaporeans go and live there when many Singaporeans obviously own their own homes?
CW: Interestingly, there is a group of seniors who really want to try out new things. Our tenant operator partnered with a senior programme provider St Bernadette Home to bring these seniors for a retreat to experience the silver co-living lifestyle. This kind of partnership and collaboration is also helping businesses to come together.
LY: Perhaps you can share a little bit on what has been done to support social enterprises and the arts. Are these spaces financially viable?
CW: We try to pivot some properties in a timely manner to meet social needs like halfway houses, nursing homes. There’s also, for example, the social impact hub, a building housing different non-profit organisations and charities together to co-create solutions – the Temasek ShopHouse. Then we have the former election office building at Prinsep Link, now being transformed into the Foundry, which houses 20-over charity startups. I think this is a very good ecosystem, and we hope to encourage more.
LY: Do all these space users feel that they’ve got enough security of tenure over their properties? Or do they sometimes have this fear that... once the lease expires, (they) have to go and find new premises. What’s your thinking?
CW: These state property spaces are by and large put up for what we call interim use. Every old building, be it an old school or army camps, is seated on a piece of land that eventually might be still slated for long-term development that has to meet the more long-term national needs.
All these properties are being let out on a nine-year tenure. We understand there is a need for certainty for businesses, so we have also progressed from a typical tenancy structure of three + three + three years, to five + four years. The first five-year tenure gives the business operator some certainty to plan better.
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