All Action At Sentosa’s South Cove

Source : Asia Property Report, Nov 17, 2007

It has recently been all action at South Cove, Sentosa Cove’s smaller second phase. Firstly, Elevation Developments made headlines by paying S$78.7 million for the 71,860sqft Green Collection, at S$1,099psf/plot ratio, which far surpassed the last en-bloc sale price of S$771psf/plot ratio paid for Sandy Island in March. Sentosa Cove has just one last landed parcel to be sold en-bloc to developers.

Elevation, helmed by Singapore’s polo captain Satinder Garcha, submitted the highest of eight bids for the plot, Sentosa’s only land parcel for strata landed housing. The plot has a 200m frontage facing the fairways of the Sentosa Golf Club’s famed Tanjong Course. Garcha said he plans to build 20 houses on the site, each with a rooftop pool and a 10m glass frontage offering a clear view of the golf course.

Elevation is associated with upmarket Good Class Bungalows and has even attracted the talents of Zaha Hadid, the Iraq-born Brit who in 2004 became the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and is designing two bungalows on Nassim Road.

Meanwhile, Ho Bee Group has launched Turquoise (pictured), a 91-apartment development situated directly across Cove Drive from the Green Collection. Turquoise offers a selection of three and four-bedroom apartments, penthouses and the ‘uber-luxurious’ Sky villas in two six-storey blocks, as well as 21 berths in the waterway around Sandy and Pearl Islands.

Common facilities include a function room, swimming pool with spa pools, barbecue pavilions and a gymnasium. Turquoise is expected to be completed by the end of 2010.

Finally, Genesis-Alliance, the Singapore-based arm fronting the joint venture of YTL Corporation and LP Worlds of Malaysia, has announced that it has partnered with Italian architect Claudio Silvestrin and landscape designer Jamie Durie for its Sandy Island development. Set to launch early next year, Sandy Island will feature 18 villas, each with a private berth.

Silvestrin, who studied in Milan and London, has since 1989 been practising worldwide from his London office, known as Claudio Silvestrin Architects, with Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein and Kanye West among his clients. Durie is a qualified horticulturist and landscape designer, author of five books and founder of Patio Landscape Architecture and Design, but is best known in Australia for making gardening ‘hip’ again as host of popular TV series Backyard Blitz.

When completed in 2010, the 117-hectare Sentosa Cove will feature a total of about 2,500 homes.