China Square Food Centre To Be Converted Into Office Space

Source : The Straits Times, Feb 14, 2008

THE three-storey China Square Food Centre in Telok Ayer Street is set to undergo a $10 million transformation into an office block.

Singapore’s office supply is so tight that one businessman has already expressed interest in renting all the office space there. If he does, he will get naming rights for the building.

The property’s owner, Wah Khiaw Developments, a property developer, aims to capitalise on the strong office rental market.

Prime office rents in Singapore have risen significantly in the past two years amid tight supply.

While a few smaller new office buildings will be ready to hit the market this year and next year, the supply crunch will ease only in 2010. That is when a large injection of Grade A office supply at the huge Marina Bay Financial Centre will be ready.

Wah Khiaw is moving quickly to get the building fitted out for offices. It has already obtained provisional permission to convert the popular food centre for retail and office use.

Renovation works will be carried out over about six months from April and the office building will be ready in the fourth quarter of the year.

It will boast a leasable area of about 11,000 sq ft of food and beverage outlets and a banking hall on the ground floor, about 38,000 sq ft of office space on the second and third floors, and carpark lots in the basement.

Sole marketing agent Knight Frank said the sizes of the food outlets and banking hall range from just 150 sq ft to 2,600 sq ft. Each floor of the building will typically have about 18,700 sq ft of space.

The developer is now in talks with two parties, one of which is keen to take up all the office space, said Knight Frank’s deputy managing director, Mr Danny Yeo.

Wah Khiaw is hoping for rents of $16 per sq ft, similar to those charged by some office buildings in the Central Business District. It has been planning for the change for months, but it had to wait for all the food stalls’ leases to expire next month, Mr Yeo said.

About two-thirds of the 138 stalls in the air-conditioned building were sold by tender under 10-year leases. The rest were retained by Wah Khiaw for lease.

The China Square Food Centre, with a gross floor area of around 58,000 sq ft, has a 30-year tenure.

It was one of the first few plots sold by tender under the Government’s China Square Concept Plan. Wah Khiaw bought it for about $17 million in 1995.