A 40-storey office building, designed by an award-winning architect, will soon take the place of one of the most popular carparks in the middle of the central business district (CBD).
The Market Street carpark will make way for the $1.4 billion Market Street office building which will add 720,000 sq ft of prime office space to the CDB.
Yesterday the three firms involved in the project, CapitaLand, CapitaCommercial Trust and Japan’s Mitsubishi Estate Asia, unveiled their plans for the building and said Japanese architect Toyo Ito is the designer for the new office tower.
Mr Ito helped design Singapore’s futuristic VivoCity shopping mall.
The Market Street office tower is being designed with the environment in mind and will be fitted with the latest energy-saving features. The building is modelled after a living plant and will feature a rooftop garden with tropical trees, said Mr Ito, one of Japan’s top architects.
It will also boast one of the highest floor-to-ceiling heights of 3.2m and will have greenery on every floor.
CapitaLand Commercial chief executive Chong Lit Cheong said the project presents ‘an excellent opportunity to add an iconic landmark to Raffles Place’.
He said the property’s value would be enhanced by the strong design and links to amenities and transport.
Speaking to reporters after the event, Mr Chong said that he expects office rents in Singapore to moderate.
Still, the new office building is expected to give a ‘yield-on-cost’ of more than 6 per cent a year, said CapitaLand.
CapitaCommercial Trust chief executive Lynette Leong said the project is set to be completed by the second half of 2014, when no other office space is expected to come onstream.
‘With its refreshing environmentally- friendly design features by Toyo Ito and good location within Raffles Place and close to Marina Bay, we believe the new Market Street office tower will be an attractive proposition for office occupiers that demand state-of-the-art building specifications,’ she said.
