Hongkong Land To Fare Better Than Other Office Landlords

HONG KONG – DBS Group Research thinks Hongkong Land is resilient enough despite its high exposure to the challenging real estate markets of Hong Kong and China, according to a report from The Edge last week.

“Despite the challenging” office market of Central in Hong Kong, the property developer and office landlord “should fare better than its peers.” However, DBS noted that rental enquiries have shown some signs of tapering off at the end of Q2 2023.

While the vacancy rate of Hongkong Land’s office portfolio in the city is expected to increase marginally, it would still outperform Central’s overall office sector due to the continued “flight to quality” trend.

In Singapore, there’s a slight fall in the overall office leasing demand. Nonetheless, office take-up has “stayed solid”. This should underpin positive rental reversions for the developer’s Singapore office portfolio, which includes the partially-owned One Raffles Link and Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC).

Meanwhile, CapitaLand Group has launched the Geneo life sciences and innovation cluster, a redevelopment that aims to help breathe new life to the 40-year-old Singapore Science Park (SSP).

When fully completed by 2025, the S$1.37 billion project is expected to boost the number of employees at the Science Park from 12,000 currently to 21,000.

Geneo comprise three properties containing a total of five buildings with a combined gross floor area (GFA) of 180,600 sq m or about 1.94 million sq ft.

The biggest asset, 1 Science Park Drive, consists of three Grade A buildings. It has 112,600 sq m (1.21 million sq ft) of office space and 3,600 sq m of retail space. It will be directly connected underground to the Kent Ridge MRT Station and is expected to be ready by 2025.

Another property is a mixed-used development at 5 Science Park Drive that contains 28,800 sq m (310,000 sq ft) of office space and 10,000 sq m (107,639 sq ft) of serviced residences under the Citadines brand. It’s targeted to be completed next year.

The last property is 5 Science Park Drive, which was already completed in 2019. It has a GFA of 25,600 sq m (275,556 sq ft) and presently houses the HQ of Shopee, an e-commerce company.