Prestigious development:
About 70% of just unveiled Pavilion Damansara Heights sold
(from left) Kuala Lumpur Pavilion Sdn Bhd CEO Datuk Joyce Yap, FT Minister Datuk Seri Utama Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Pavilion design director Tan Peng Han, Pavilion Group deputy chairman Puan Sri Cindy Lim and 1 Pavilion Property Consultancy Sdn Bhd sales and marketing director Datuk Tracey Lai with a model of Pavilion Damansara Heights.
KUALA LUMPUR: Property developer Pavilion Group and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) unveiled one of Kuala Lumpur’s most anticipated mixed integrated developments yesterday in a project that seems to buck the current slow property market.
The 16-acre project, known as Pavilion Damansara Heights, will have a total of 10 office blocks, of which eight are en bloc sales, and two on strata basis. Seven of the en bloc sales have already been formally acquired.
The highest block of between 40 and 50 storeys is currently under negotiation, 1 Pavilion Property Consultancy Sdn Bhd sales and marketing director Datuk Tracey Lai said.
She was speaking to reporters after the project was unveiled by Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Utama Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor.
Pavilion Damansara Heights will have about 1.5 million sq ft of office space, a third of which will be in the last and highest block. All eight blocks will be acquired by corporate companies or corporate figures. The smallest is an 11-storey block with a net lettable area of 75,000 sq ft.
The development is part of the larger Pusat Bandar Damansara (PBD), which has a 46-acre foot print which the Pavilion Group shares with a couple of other developers.
Lai attributed the interest generated so far to the strong Pavilion brand, the Damansara Heights address and its connectivity. The redeveloped PBD will be served by two MRT stations.
The mixed integrated development will also have about 1,300 residential units, with sizes ranging from 600 sq ft to 2,800 sq ft.
Lai said the interest so far for its residential blocks has been in the larger units, which again bucks the trend because other developers have reported interest in smaller units of about 1,000 sq ft and below.
Prices average about RM1,800 per sq ft and close to 2,500 have registered their interest, Lai said.
The Pavilion Group will also have retail space of 1.17 million sq ft, split between a five- and seven-storey development which will be seamlessly connected. The retail mall will also be connected to the PBD MRT station.
The retail mall, nine out of 10 office blocks and the majority of the residential units are expected to be completed in stages by 2022.
Retail queen Datuk Joyce Yap, the CEO of Kuala Lumpur Pavilion Sdn Bhd, said the mall will be “a destina- tion” in itself. While Yap aims to replicate the success of KL Pavilion, one of the top two retail malls in the city, the new mall in Pavilion Damansara Heights will have a different focus, with a larger emphasis on dining, entertainment, services and other new concepts.
Unveiling the development, which will have a gross development value of RM9bil, Tengku Adnan acknowledged the concerns of residents about the possible congestion due to the massive redevelopment in the area. To overcome that, he said the developer would be building a new highway which will stretch between Section 16, Petaling Jaya and Jalan Semantan at a cost of about RM200mil.
Pavilion Damansara Heights is a joint-venture project between the Pavilion Group and CPPIB. The investment management organisation, with a total fund size of C$326.5bil (RM1.11 trillion) as at September 2017, took a 49% interest, or an investment of RM485mil, in the project in 2015. About a year later, CPPIB committed a further US$162mil to buy a 40% interest in Pavilion Dalian shopping mall in Dalian, China.