CDL holds 84 percent of the units in Delfi Orchard (Source: Savills)
Singapore’s Orchard Road continues to be a redevelopment hot spot with an ageing building near the Four Seasons and Pan Pacific Orchard hotels launched for sale on Thursday at a reserve price of S$438 million ($321 million).
Delfi Orchard, an 11-storey retail and apartment property built by City Developments Ltd in 1985, is the target of a tender for collective sale managed by Savills as the exclusive agent, with a potential buyer entitled to develop a commercial tower of up to 131,186 square feet (12,188 square metres) on the site.
“Being a freehold commercial site, Delfi Orchard is another rare opportunity for developers looking to acquire a prime redevelopment site at the gateway of Orchard Road,” Jeremy Lake, managing director for investment sales and capital markets at the property agency, said in a statement. “The successful collective sales of Tanglin Shopping Centre and Ming Arcade brokered by Savills, are a testament to the strong attributes of the Orchard Road locale.”
Located at the corner of Orchard Road and Claymore Road, the property stands diagonally opposite Hotel Properties Ltd’s Forum Mall, which was approved for redevelopment in August as part of a three-building scheme, and across the road from the Ming Arcade, which local investor Royal Group acquired through a $127 million collective sale in December 2022.
Tourism Market Opportunity
Delfi Orchard currently consists of six floors of retail shops topped by 23 apartments, with 126 of the 150 strata units in the building still held by CDL, according to the company’s annual report. Collective sale applications in Singapore require consent by holders of 80 percent of the share value and the floor space in the property to secure regulatory approval, with CDL’s holdings representing 84 percent of the units in the building. The 656-key Orchard Hotel Singapore, which is held by CDL Hospitality Trusts, an SGX-listed trust sponsored by the developer, is next door to the building.
Sherman Kwek, chief executive of City Developments Ltd
The guide price translates to S$3,397 per square foot of the site’s maximum buildable area, according to Savills, with the tender set to close on 27 May.
WIth the 20,264 square foot freehold plot zoned for commercial use, Savills said future developments can accommodate a variety of uses including luxury retail, office, residential and hotel, subject to URA approval. With Orchard Road a top destination for Singapore visitors, Delfi Orchard is also within a few hundred metres of the St Regis and Shangri-La Hotels, in addition to its proximity to the Pan Pacific Orchard and the Four Seasons.
Set in a prime section of Singapore’s best known retail strip, the property is currently home to an assortment of mid-range educational, food and beverage and service companies, including a Starbucks, the Bunka Language School and a feng shui master.
Redevelopment Hotspot
The asking price for Delfi Orchard is 9 percent higher than the S$3,125 per square foot of built area that Royal Group paid to acquire Ming Arcade less than a year and a half ago. It is also about 35 percent more than the S$2,769 per square foot which Pacific Eagle Real Estate, a company owned by the family of Indonesian lumber tycoon Sukanto Tanoto, paid to acquire the Tanglin Shopping Centre on Tanglin Road in February 2022, with that project within 10 minutes’ walk of Delfi Orchard.
The Singapore government has been encouraging developers to knock down aging buildings along the Orchard Road strip, with the Urban Redevelopment Authority in 2020 having announced a master plan to rejuvenate the area into a “green Oasis in the city,” which investors expect to boost property values.
Despite that encouragement, Bright Ruby Resources, an investment firm backed by Chinese billionaire Du Shuanghua, earlier this month backed out of a S$908 million deal to buy the Far East Shopping Centre, located one block down Orchard Road from Delfi Orchard, when it failed to win approval for incentives which would have allowed it to supersize the property.
CDL Tunes Portfolio
With CDL holding the largest chunk of Delfi Orchard, the collective sale could present an opportunity for the developer to build a new project in one of Singapore’s swankiest locations. CDL had not responded to inquiries from Mingtiandi regarding the tender by the time of publication.
The company chaired by billionaire Kwek Leng Beng in February opened The Singapore Edition, a S$680 per night hotel which it redeveloped on the site of the former Boulevard Hotel, following a design by architect Moshe Safdie, who planned the Changi Jewel.
The hotel is part of a CDL project which also includes the Boulevard 88 super-luxury condo project where the company has now sold more than 90 percent of the units for an average of S$3,814 per square foot. A few doors down the retail strip from Delfi Orchard is CDL’s Palais Renaissance, an upscale retail and office property.
At its results briefing in February of this year, CDL said it aims to divest S$1 billion in assets this year, with Savills and Edmund Tie last week commencing marketing for a portfolio of 47 strata-titled commercial lots in two assets in the Bras Basah area, including CDL’s remaining 27 strata lots in Fortune Centre at the junction of Middle Road and Bencoolen Street – four retail and 23 office units – for S$63.6 million.
The agents were also assigned to look for a buyer for 20 strata office lots CDL holds in Sunshine Plaza on Bencoolen Street at an aggregate asking price of S$32 million.
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