Marina View white site tender drew $1.5 billion bid
Introduction to Marina View Tender
The Marina View white site sits at the junction of Marina View and Union Street, which is north of the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, near Shenton Way It is situation about 100 metre from the upcoming Shenton Way MRT Station.
The site was in the Reserve List of the 1 H 2021 Government Land Sales (GLS) Programme On 10 June this year, the site was triggered for sale by tender with the application bid price of $1.508 billion or 1 378 52 psf ppr and the tender was subsequently launched on 28 June 2021 The tender for the white site at Marina View closed on 21 September 2021.
Details of Marina View land parcel
This site measures 7,818 sqm and with a plot ratio of 13. It could yield approximately 905 housing units and 540 hotel rooms A minimum of 50% and 25.6% of Gross Floor Area ( is reserved for Residential and Hotel use respectively The remaining space can be used for residential, hotel, serviced apartments and approved commercial uses.
The details for this site are included in the table below
Table 1 | Details of the GLS site at Marina View.
Most of the Government Land Sale(GLS) white sites in the Shenton Way MRT Station area that were previously sold were predominantly used for office developments or have a significantly large office component.
The white site at MarinaView is different as a large proportion of the space will be used for residential development. About 900 to 1,260 housing units could be built on this site. The other major part of the development will be a hotel with about 540 rooms or more. The commercial space will only make up about 2,000 sqm of gross floor area (GFA).
Figure 1 | Location map of GLS site at Marina View
Comparable residential developments
The previous GLS white site around the Marina Bay Area was sold in November 2016 to IOI Properties for $2,568,686,688 which translated to a land rate of $1,689 psf ppr It is currently being developed as IOI Central Boulevard Tower, where a significant part of the space will be used as offices.
As a large part of the space in the Marina View site will be developed into residential units, the land price for the site will be influenced by prices of residential units in that area The table below shows the year to date transacted prices of comparable residential properties.
Table 2 | Comparable residential properties
Tender results of Marina View
The tender for this site attracted only one bid of $1,508,000,101, which translated to a land rate of $1 378.52 psf ppr The sole bid was likely submitted by the developer who triggered the tender for this site, namely IOI Properties.
Why only one bid?
This is the first time since the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998 that a GLS tender for a white site drew only one bid from a developer There are a few possible reasons why this tender only attracted one bid, despite some market commentators saying that property developers are hungry for land.
First, in order to have a good chance to win in this tender, the competing developer(s) must bid above the minimum price of 1 508 billion The huge land price at above 1 5 billion and the subsequent development costs may be a hurdle for some developers.
Second, as the development at Marina View will be a major high rise project, the development period will likely be longer than the usual four to five years for the typical residential developments The longer the development period, the higher the development risk Furthermore, some developers may not want their resources to be tied up in a single project for a long period.
Third, the construction cost for this project will be huge as the size of the Marina View development will be close to 1 1 million sq ft of space In addition, there are major uncertainties and bottlenecks in the construction industry due to the supply chain disruption and manpower shortages caused by the pandemic Construction costs is also rising This would further increase the risk profile of this project.
Fourth, the recent fallout from the financial troubles of Evergrande has increased the risk level in the development market This may have put some developers off enormously big ticket projects with long gestation for the mean time.
Fifth, about a quarter to one third of the GFA in the Marina View development will be developed for hotel uses The Singapore hospitality industry depends heavily on the demand from foreign visitors The pandemic reduces the number of visitor arrivals and the demand for hotel rooms Hence, the ongoing adverse impact of the pandemic on the hospitality industry would also lower the demand for hotel related properties.
Conclusion
The tender of the Marina View GLS site closed at a time when the risk profile for such major project has risen Hence, some developers may be saving their resources for other land tenders.
The Singapore government is likely to award this tender to the sole bidder as the former has announced in June 2021 that the minimum price of $1,508 billion was acceptable to the government.
In time to come, the Marina View project will become a major residential and hotel development at the southern part of the Singapore CBD It is located near the future Greater Southern Waterfront and could benefit from the latter’s development When the Marina View project is completed, it will contribute to the changing landscape of the CBD with its growing resident population.
ERA Singapore
ERA Search & Consultancy Team
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