SALES for a minimum of three freehold projects are slated to start on either Friday or during this weekend: Boulevard 88 during a traditional prime district, One Meyer next to the upcoming Katong Park MRT station and 1953 along Tessensohn Road. On Friday, a consortium comprising City Developments, Hong Leong Holdings and Lea Investments begins its soft launch (by appointment only) of Boulevard 88.

This is the luxury residential component of a project that will also include The Singapore EDITION Hotel and six basement levels that will include car parking facilities. The Moshe Safdie-designed project, on a sprawling site with dual frontages along Orchard Boulevard and Cuscaden Road, is expected to be completed in 2022. The development is coming up on the site of the old Boulevard Hotel, which was shut in 2000 and demolished thereafter.

Boulevard 88 will have 154 luxury residences in two towers of 28 storeys each perched above the eight-storey hotel. The two towers will be linked at the top with a Skypark that will have an infinity pool, cabana, lounges, kitchens, club, gym and other facilities.

BT understands that indicative prices are expected to start from S$3,300-plus per square foot. Boulevard 88 will have 50 units each of two bedroom-plus-study apartments, three-bedders, and four- bedders, in addition to four penthouses.

Over in the Meyer Road locale, on the former Albracca site, a consortium led by Sustained Land is developing One Meyer. This will be a 19-storey project with 66 units, equally split between two-bedroom and three bedroom apartments.

The two-bedders are 614 sq ft each, while the three-bedders come in two sizes: 926 sq ft and 1,033 sq ft. Facilities include a swimming pool, wading pool, gym and communal jacuzzi. “Units on upper levels will have sea views,” said Sustained Land executive director Douglas Ong when contacted by BT. Sustained Land is developing the project jointly with Goodland Group, Ho Lee Group and Kwong Lee Land.

The project goes on sale on Saturday, as well Oxley Holdings’ 1953 mixed development coming up at the corner of Balestier and Tessensohn roads. The six-storey project will have 58 residential units (with an average price of about S$1,850 psf) and 14 commercial units (priced at about S$3,000 psf on average).

Residential developers on the island seem to be on a launch-as-fast as-you-can mode to secure buyers amid ballooning pipeline supply of private homes arising from land-bingeing by developers in 2017 and the first half of 2018 fuelled by the collective sales fever.

Last July’s property cooling measures have unsettled market sentiment but this flurry of launches could be interpreted in two ways, argues Savills Singapore research head Alan Cheong. “Observers who are bearish will say developers are in panic mode, but i feel as long as developers still have a while more to travel before they hit the five-year sales deadline, there is no harm in testing the market with launches now and gauging the response.
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CBRE’s head of research for Singapore and South-east Asia, Desmond Sim, noted that factors that will be key to developers’ success at launches include strong project attributes, reasonable pricing and increasingly, the track record of the developer.

The two bedroom-plus-study units are all 1,313 sq ft each and indicatively, their prices begin from S$4.4 million per unit. Prices of the three-bedders (all 1,776 sq ft each) are expected to begin from S$6 million, while the four-bedders (2,756 sq ft to 2,799 sq ft) will begin from S$9.6 million. The four penthouses have sizes ranging from 5,673 sq ft to 6,049 sq ft.