AN ARCHITECTURAL icon and a site that housed a dingy hotel once famous for its bargain-priced beer were put up for sale yesterday.
The more prominent of the two is Pearl Bank Apartments, which was in the news with architects lamenting its impending demise given its status as a key piece of local design.
But most owners of the 37-year-old building in Outram Road want to sell and cash in on the booming property market.
The building is on a conveniently located 99-year leasehold site expected to fetch at least $750 million, said Knight Frank, which is handling its collective sale.
The land price works out to $1,445 per sq ft of potential gross floor area, including an estimated $137 million to top up the lease. This assumes the site can be fully developed to a gross floor area of about 56,999 sq m.
The tender for Pearl Bank, which has 280 apartments and eight commercial units, closes on Sept 18.
In Killiney Road, the site housing the Mitre Hotel built in the 1870s and a small two-storey adjacent building was finally put up for sale after a court ruling gave the go-ahead in April.
The dilapidated building had been left
untouched for years because its owners - the Chiam family - were caught in a lengthy legal battle over its sale.
The hotel, which started in 1948, ceased operations when its licence was not renewed in 2002. It continued to operate its bar and regulars used to gather around the crumbling furniture to take advantage of its cheap beer.
But Mr Chiam Heng Hsien, who owns 10 per cent of the property, had resisted his cousins' attempts to sell the plot for the past 10 years until the court ruled against him.
It seems the timing for the sale has never been better, though it is subject to a valuation being done and the sale price exceeding it.
Property experts, pointing to the way nearby sites have rocketed in value recently, reckon the Mitre plot could fetch $200 million or more.
This works out to at least $1,800 per sq ft of potential gross floor area, with one expert tipping a price of up to $2,000 psf of potential gross floor area.
The freehold site, which is close to Oxley Rise, has an allowable building height of up to 10 storeys. and could be built up to a gross floor area of 111,922 sq ft.
The development charge for intensifying the land use will be be about $700,000 or more, depending on the rates revision on Sept 1.
Jones Lang LaSalle, which is marketing the site, says its tender closes on Sept 12.
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