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Shipping firms flock to HarbourFront
Office Park
NYK Line, P&O Nedlloyd, and Mitsui OSK Lines are among
those attracted by the proximity to port terminals
The HarbourFront Office Park, consisting
of three towers, is fast becoming a hub for shipping companies, given its
proximity to four port terminals. The latest shipping company to head there
will be NYK Line, which recently signed a lease for 60,000 sq ft at
HarbourFront Tower One, sources told BT. The deal is said to boost occupancy
for the 375,000 sq ft building to about 90 per cent.
Only the top floor of the 18-storey tower and some
space on the third floor are still available for lease.
Other shipping lines that have relocated to the
park over the past year or so include P&O Nedlloyd, and Mitsui OSK
Lines. Both are in HarbourFront Tower Two (the refurbished former Cable Car
Tower). The 150,000 sq ft building is said to be 35-40 per cent let. Both
blocks are majority owned by Mapletree Investments, a fully owned unit of
Temasek Holdings.
The third building in the HarbourFront Office park
is KeppelBay Tower, which is majority owned by Keppel Group. About 60 per
cent of its 395,000 sq ft total net lettable area is occupied. Keppel Corp
itself has taken up two floors while other tenants include Canon Singapore
and BMW.
HarbourFront Tower One and Keppel Bay Tower, both
18 storeys high, were completed in late 2002 while the HarbourFront TowerTwo
was completed in Q1 2003.
Singapore is reeling from an office glut that has
seen 17.9 per cent of total office space on the island sitting idle at the
end of last year, according to official data. According to Jones Lang
LaSalle figures, average islandwide office rents fell 18.5 per cent last
year.
The space which NYK Line will occupy at
HarbourFront Tower One is understood to be spread over the building's 13th
to 16th levels. NYK and its related companies are moving their operations
from several existing offices on the island, including Gateway at Beach Road
and Suntec City, to the new location.
The shipping line's lease with Mapletree is for
five years and the gross monthly rental rate is said to be 'at least $3
psf'.
Other major tenants in the building include Exxon
Mobil (occupying about half the tower), Dupont, Power Seraya and the
backroom operations of UBS Warburg. - By
Kalpana Rashawala Singapore
Business Times
20 March 2004
Keppel Bay Tower (right) and
HarbourFront Tower One (left), with Cable Car Towers, which is being
refurbished, in the middle
The recently-completed Keppel Bay Tower
near the World Trade Centre could well be the new headquarters for the Land
Transport Authority (LTA), say sources.
LTA, which was in the limelight a few
months ago when it had to shelve its plans to build its own HQ near Buona
Vista MRT Station following adverse public reaction, is said to be currently
in talks to possibly lease the entire 18-storey Keppel Bay Tower. The
property, located near the new HarbourFront MRT station, has nearly 400,000
sq ft of net lettable area.
Keppel Bay Tower is substantially owned
by the Keppel Group including Keppel Land, and is part of the HarbourFront
Office Park development.
On LTA's interest in Keppel Bay Tower, an
LTA spokeswoman said: 'We are in talks with several developers including
Keppel Land to explore the possibility of leasing space for the LTA office.
We are still evaluating our options, including the option of continuing to
operate from our current locations. Thus, we have not made any decision or
plan in this regard.'
LTA's 3,700 staff currently operate out
of seven locations on the island - Hampshire Road (former Kandang Kerbau
Hospital), Albert Complex, MND Complex, North Bridge Road, Sin Ming Drive,
PSA Building and Rex House (formerly known as Thong Nam Building).
LTA made the headlines in August when it
shelved plans to build a new HQ that could have cost up to $500 million,
soon after the plans were revealed.
There was much adverse public reaction to
the proposal, which would have centralised the government agency's
operations under one roof.
Some questioned the need for another
grand building for a government body while others asked what need there was
for LTA to become a major landlord, worsening the existing office glut in
the process. The proposed building was to have 1.29 million sq ft built-up
space, or twice LTA's requirements. LTA had intended to rent out more than
half the space in the proposed HQ at Buona Vista. Some observers suggested
that instead of developing a new building, LTA should lease an existing
building if it wanted to centralize its operations and thus help alleviate
the oversupply of offices on the island.
The former HDB headquarters in Bukit
Merah and the World Trade Centre are among the properties LTA is said to
have looked at as alternative locations for its HQ.
The HarbourFront Office Park also
includes another 18-storey building - HarbourFront Tower One, which, like
Keppel Bay Tower, received its Temporary Occupation Permit last month - and
the Cable Car Towers which is being refurbished. These two buildings are
majority owned by The HarbourFront Pte Ltd, an 80:20 joint venture between
Mapletree Investments and PSA Corp.
Mapletree Investments' HarbourFront Tower
One, with about 375,000 sq ft net lettable area, is substantially leased
with tenants like Exxon Mobil, DuPont and UBS Warburg. -
by Kalpana Rashiwala
Singapore
Business Times 15 Dec 2002
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