Horizon Towers En Bloc 2023 – Leonie Hill Road Collective Sale
Horizon Towers has been put up for collective sale again through a public tender, with the same reserve price of S$1.1 billion.
The 204,742 sq ft property costs S$2,049 psf ppr based on the reserve price and an expected lease top-up premium of S$277 million.
According to JLL Singapore, the 99-year leasehold property has “great upside potential for redevelopment into a highly premium high-rise residential setting with magnificent city views.”
The land is classified as “residential” in the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s 2019 Master Plan, with a maximum allowable height of 36 storeys. It’s authorized gross plot ratio “as-built” is around 3.28228.
Tan Hong Boon, who is the executive director of capital markets for JLL in Singapore, said that developers can make a variety of small and large unit layouts because the development is in the Central Area and does not have to meet minimum average unit size requirements.
Because of the site’s high development baseline, there is no land betterment fee for site intensification, even up to the maximum bonus gross floor area of 7%. JLL stated that this indicates a unit land rate of S$1,862 psf ppr.
“At this fair price point, this is a tempting redevelopment opportunity that should be re-evaluated in light of the impending shifting market circumstances in favour of the high-end market sector,” Tan added.
Horizon Towers’ collective sale tender concludes on March 30, 2023, at 3 p.m.
Rising Demand For Luxury Units Within the Core Central Region (CCR)
With the site’s relaunch, developers will be able to “bolster their land bank and be ready to capitalize on the continued rising demand for CCR (Core Central Region) units,” said Tan, who also pointed out that the number of unsold units in the CCR is going down, even though developers have sold a lot more units in the primary market over the past two years.
JLL says that in the near future, there will be a noticeable lack of high-end homes, especially around Orchard Road.
Since primary-market sales inside the CCR have gone up a lot in the past two years, the agency predicts that sales will continue to go up.
Horizon Towers, which was built in the late 1970s, was almost sold in 2009 for S$500 million to a group headed by Hotel Properties.
The transaction was challenged by a group of minority owners, and the Court of Appeal invalidated it based on its conclusion that the collective sales process was conducted improperly.
During 2018, the prime site at Leonie Hill Road has been relaunched several times for collective sale by tender with a S$1.1 billion reserve price. The last offer expired in October 2022 without a buyer.
Horizon Towers is not the only billion-dollar site that launched this year. Kensington Park in Serangoon Gardens was relaunched for enbloc sale last week with a reserve price of S$1.28 billion.
The property also met the same fate without a sale when their tender closed on November 18, 2022.