City Developments and partner Woh Hup submitted the top bid for a rare residential site in the Tanjung Rhu Road area, near Singapore’s national stadium.
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City Developments Ltd.(CDL)—controlled by billionaire Kwek Leng Beng and his family—and its partner Woh Hup Holdings tendered the highest bid for a rare residential site in one of Singapore’s upscale neighborhoods.
The company has been actively replenishing its landbank amid a buoyant housing demand in Singapore, one of the world’s most expensive real estate markets. The bid comes as CDL sold more than half of a prime residential condominium project in the city’s central business district over the weekend.
The joint venture, its first with Woh Hup, offered S$709.3 million ($556.5 million) for a 99-year leasehold residential site at Tanjong Rhu Road, a posh neighborhood in eastern Singapore that’s about 15-minutes drive to the CBD. The offer for the 131,744 square-feet (12,239 square-meter) site, equivalent to S$1,455 per square foot per plot ratio, was 2.5% higher than the second-highest bid from a consortium comprising Malaysian billionaire Jeffrey Cheah’s Sunway MCL and a unit of Sinarmas Land, owned by Widjaja family, one of the wealthiest clans in Indonesia.
Singapore-listed City Developments owns 90% of the venture while the rest will be owned by privately held Woh Hup, one of Singapore’s oldest and biggest construction groups and main contractor for CDL’s various projects.
The Tanjong Rhu site is the first private residential land parcel the government launched for sale in the area since 1997. It’s strategically located near the National Stadium within the Kallang precinct, which the government aims to turn into a premier sports, lifestyle and entertainment hub.
“The future project here will be an exciting one to watch,” says Justin Quek, deputy CEO at Realion Group in Singapore, citing potential pent-up demand in the area. “Homeowners staying in the nearby landed properties and looking to right-size their homes, may be interested in the future development.”
CDL said the joint venture plans to build 520 apartment units in three 26-storey residential blocks with an integrated early childhood development centre.
Residents of the project will benefit from the proximity to key developments including indoor arena, the Kallang, and Home of TeamSG that integrates the Singapore Sports School, CDL said. The Kallang Wave Mall will also be revitalized and is slated to unveil enhanced alfresco dining and retail concepts by 2028, it added.
“We are very pleased to have emerged as the top bidder for this highly sought-after Tanjong Rhu Road site,” Sherman Kwek, group CEO of CDL, said. “We look forward to creating an icon within this transformative precinct.”
The site is near schools and within walking distance to Katong Park MRT station and Tanjong Rhu MRT station, which are both on the Thomson-East Coast Line, providing seamless connectivity across the island. It’s also linked to the CBD via Nicoll Highway and the East Coast Parkway.
