A 30-YEAR leasehold industrial site on Bukit Batok Street 23 yesterday drew four bids, with the top bid coming in at $32.3 million, or $80.03 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr).

The top bid, submitted by Soilbuild Group Holdings, beat the second-highest bid of $26.3 million or $65.06 psf ppr put in by Vantage Properties Pte Ltd, which is controlled by Lim Kim Hong and Lim Huixing.

Land parcel

Dominic Peters, director of industrial and business space at Savills, said the top bid at the subject site represented a fair market price.

The prices seen at recent industrial government land sales show that the measures put in place by the government to cool the industrial market have worked, said Tan Boon Leong, Colliers International's director (industrial), referring to the tender for the 30-year leasehold, 240,745.62 sq ft plot at Mandai Link which closed earlier this month at $75.25 psf ppr.

"Before all of these restrictions came into effect, a 60-year leasehold site would sell at twice the amount psf ppr. The bids are now more reasonable," said Mr Tan.

The regulations levied on the industrial sector include capping of leases for all industrial sites sold in the Industrial Government Land Sales programme at 30 years, and developers not being allowed to strata sub-divide the development on selected sites in the first 10 years after completing the project.

The latter restriction applies to the subject site, which has a site area of some 161,578 sq ft. It has a maximum permissible gross plot ratio of 2.5 and is zoned Business 1. It has a maximum building height of 153 metres above mean sea level.

Said Mr Tan: "Assuming you get $1.50 psf (prevailing leasing benchmark for the area), you get a decent 8-9 per cent over cost."

Capital Development Pte Ltd and ZACD Investments Pte Ltd put up a joint bid of $20.65 million, or $51.12 psf ppr.

BB Consortium Pte Ltd put in the lowest bid of $18.3 million, or $45.30 psf ppr.