Business

Saturday January 31, 2009

Adding value to Mutiara Damansara

By EDY SARIF


THE development of 360 acres in Mutiara Damansara by Boustead Properties Bhd will see the addition of another jewel in March with the completion of the 26-storey Surian Tower office building.

According to its executive director Datuk Ghazali Mohd Ali, this is part of the property developer’s efforts to add value to the current development: “Of the 360 acres of development, 20 acres are allocated for corporate office projects while the other 40 acres are for retail.”

“It will be the tallest building in this area. We will also build and maintain the roads here to ensure easy access, not just for those living here, but also for visitors as well. With the help of the authorities, we have managed to control the traffic here, though there is still room for improvement,” he said at a recent media briefing.

Ghazali: About two million people come to The Curve every month.

There are several access roads to Mutiara Damansara – via Persiaran Surian from Bandar Utama, Persiaran Surian from Kota Damansara, Jalan PJU 7/1 from Damansara Perdana and via Penchala Link from Kuala Lumpur.

Sited on prime area just beside Bandar Utama and with freehold title, Mutiara Damansara properties enjoy high appreciation value especially the residential units.

For example, he pointed out, when Mutiara Damansara first launched its bungalows and semi-Ds in 2002, the selling prices were RM1.3mil and RM843,000 respectively. Last year, he says, these units were changing hands for RM2.4mil and RM1.8mil respectively.

Boustead Properties is now preparing to launch its last residential development in the area, Mutiara Damansara Surian Residency, which will be its second condominium project after the Surian Condominium. The freehold development will have about 300 units of between 900 and 2,200 sq ft.

It will have two blocks of 23 and 25 storeys each and some low-rise units, priced at about RM400 psf.

The Surian Tower building, he says, will be eco-friendly as it will tap rain water through its ground reservoir for landscaping.

“We are building a car park above to give natural ventilation. Apart from that, we are using layers of sun shading louvres for energy consumption,” he adds.

The new office building will have over 300,000 sq ft of space for rental and each floor plate offers 15,000 sq ft of space with net lettable area of 12,000 sq ft.

“Our plan is to have about 60% anchor tenants while the balance would be for smaller companies. About 50% of the space has already been taken up,” he says, adding that Nestle (M) Bhd will be one of the anchor tenants.

Work on the building, a gross development value of RM165mil, started 1½ years ago. It was sold to Lembaga Angkatan Tentera (LTAT) for RM500 psf.

“Surian Tower will provide a total of 930 car parks to add to the existing 7,000 parking bays around The Curve area. This will help ease the shortage of parking bays around this area especially during the weekends,” says Ghazali.

The Curve, Malaysia’s first lifestyle pedestrianised shopping mall, is owned and developed by Mutiara Rini Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Boustead Properties.

Currently, about 98% of the space at The Curve is occupied. Even so, he says, there is a long waiting list of new tenants eager to move in.

“About two million people come to The Curve every month. Traffic is high, which is a good sign for our tenants’ businesses. Some of them are, in fact, expanding their businesses here,” he says.

The Curve has about 70 food and beverage outlets, bistros and cafés, as well as, 250 shops plus 20 office suites.

Boustead Properties also plans to build a second Royal Bintang hotel (the first is The Royal Bintang Damansara) to be located behind Cineleisure which will have about 300 rooms and a convention centre.

“We plan to build an interlink connecting The Surian Tower to the hotel and straight to The Curve shopping mall. It would be fully air-conditioned, five metres wide with some shops along the way,” he says, adding to improve connectivity, the company is also hoping to have a physical link from the proposed new LRT station beside the Surian Tower.

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