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(SINGAPORE) City Developments will spend $580 million in total development cost for a 99-year leasehold hotel, commercial and condo project called The Quayside Isle on Sentosa Cove, the group's executive chairman Kwek Leng Beng said yesterday.

Cheers! (From left) Darrell Metzger, CEO of Sentosa Leisure Group; Chia Ngiang Hong, Group GM of City Developments; Kwek Leng Beng, chairman of City Developments; and Jennie Chua, chairman of Sentosa Cove Pte Ltd. Ms Chua said the decision to award the site to CityDev was based on a combination of creative concept and price.

This sum includes the $255 million land price that the listed property group will pay for the 523,246 sq ft plot, called the Quayside Collection, to Sentosa Cove Pte Ltd. The latter is the master developer of the upscale housing district coming up on Sentosa island.

CityDev has appointed Starwood to operate the 320-room hotel in the development under its Westin brand, confirming an earlier report by BT. The seven-storey Westin Quayside Isle Resort & Spa will have about 320 rooms and is expected to be operational in 2008. It will mark the return of the Westin brand to Singapore after an absence of about seven years. Westin Hotels & Resorts used to manage the two hotels in the Raffles City complex until its contract expired at the end of 2001.

The six-storey condominium in The Quayside Isle development will have up to 236 units and is expected to be launched in the second half of next year.

Asked how the development is likely to be priced compared with the slightly over $1,300 psf average currently being achieved for the group's 15-storey The Oceanfront @ Sentosa Cove condo which sold like hot cakes recently, Mr Kwek said pricing for the new condo would depend on demand at the time of launch.

The entire Quayside Isle development is slated for completion by end-2009. 'Our plan is to develop The Quayside Isle along the lines of Balboa Island in Newport Beach, California,' Mr Kwek said.

He also touted The Quayside Isle as 'another golden opportunity not to be missed' for those who want a piece of high-end, exclusive real estate.

The Quayside Isle's three-storey commercial component will have 61,702 sq ft of gross floor area. The lower two floors will be for retail use while the top floor will be for small office, home office (Soho) units. The entire commercial component is likely to be held for rental income although CityDev officials did not discount the possibility of the group selling this portion en bloc to a single buyer if the price is right.

The Quayside Isle development can have a maximum gross floor area of about 718,588 sq ft. Based on this, the $255 million price that CityDev is paying for the site reflects a composite unit land price of $355 psf per plot ratio. This was slightly higher than the $343 psf ppr minimum reserve price that Sentosa Cove had set for the plot.

The hotel and commercial plots are mandatory components of the Quayside Collection sale. And while the condo plots are optional, their inclusion in the package has been seen as the sweetener to draw bidders to develop the hotel and commercial plots.

Sentosa Cove Pte Ltd chairman Jennie Chua said the decision to award the site to CityDev was based on a combination of creative concept and price. The expression of interest for the site attracted five bids in all. The other four bids are understood to have come from Pontiac Land, Far East Organization, Marriott, and Lippo. Interestingly, Lippo too had named Westin as the proposed operator of the hotel component.