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THE collective sale market for prime sites continues to sizzle.

Hot property: Lucky Tower owners will receive $4.1-$4.4m per apartment, while penthouse owners will get $6m

Even as it was made official yesterday that City Developments Ltd (CDL) has been awarded the Lucky Tower site in Grange Road for $383 million, another prime site, Habitat One at Ardmore Park has been launched. The freehold site of 54,980 sq ft being marketed by Knight Frank, has an expected price of 'no less than $188 million'.

The sellers are seeking a record unit land price of $1,280 psf of potential gross floor area inclusive of an estimated development charge of $9.1 million.

If this price is achieved, each of the owners of Habitat One's 32 units will receive an average of nearly $5.9 million per unit - or over 70 per cent more than the last transaction in the estate, which was $3.3 million in August last year.

The site is zoned for residential use with a 2.8 plot ratio (ratio of potential gross floor area to land area) and 36-storey height limit. The tender for Habitat One closes on July 4.

Over at Grange Road, the sale of the Lucky Tower site to CDL confirms an earlier BT report.

The price comes out at $1,134 psf of potential gross floor area inclusive of development charges. The only other bidder for the site is said to have been Far East Organization, the original developer of the project and which retains a penthouse and a minimart in the development.

Far East, which has consented to the collective sale, will walk away with about $7.5 million for its two units in the development.

Based on CDL's $1,134 psf per plot ratio (psf ppr) unit land cost for Lucky Tower, its breakeven cost for a new luxury condo could be about $1,650 to $1,700 psf, say market watchers. Right next door is Spring Grove condo, an award-winning project also developed by CityDev.

CityDev has yet to develop the Kim Lin Mansion site diagonally across the road, which it snapped up for $996 psf ppr including development charge in late 1999 during the last collective sale boom.

The Lucky Tower site has a freehold land area of 169,189 sq ft and is zoned for residential use with a 2.1 plot ratio and 24-storey height limit. The site can be redeveloped into a new condo with about 175 units averaging 2,000 sq ft each.

CityDev group general manager Chia Ngiang Hong described Lucky Tower as an 'exceptional quality site that will add outstanding value to CDL's landbank'.

The group's other sites in the area include the 130,535 sq ft former Boulevard Hotel site.

The existing Lucky Tower has 90 apartments and a minimart. Jeffrey Goh, head of investment sales at Newman & Goh, which brokered the sale of Lucky Tower, said that owners will receive $4.1 million to $4.4 million per apartment, while penthouse owners will get $6 million each.

These sums are at least 80 per cent more than what the apartments could have fetched if sold on an individual basis, he said. The minimart receives $1.5 million.

The $383 million price for Lucky Tower is shy of the record $385 million set last week for the collective sale of Waterfront View facing Bedok Reservoir, bought by a joint venture between Frasers Centrepoint and Far East Organization.

Nonetheless, Lucky Tower has achieved the highest absolute price for a freehold collective sale site. The Waterfront View site is on a site with a remaining lease of 78 years which its developers will seek to top up to the original 99 years.