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Sep 26, 2007

Boutique developer buys Sentosa Cove site for $79m

It beats 7 others for landed property plot; plans to build 20 houses there

By Joyce Teo, Property Correspondent

A YOUNG entrepreneur who became a full-time polo player after selling his Silicon Valley dot.com firm has emerged as a successful property developer here.

Indian-born Satinder Garcha, 36, signalled his growing status in the industry yesterday when his company paid $78.68 million for a 200m-long landed plot in Sentosa Cove.

Boutique developer Elevation Developments beat seven other bidders in what Sentosa Cove, which is marketing the land, said was a highly competitive process.

Its price for the 71,589 sq ft plot, which faces the Sentosa Golf Club's Tanjong course, works out to $1,099 per sq ft of potential gross floor area.

This surpassed the $771.25 psf collective sale price paid for the enclave's Sandy Island in March.

Sentosa Cove now has just one last landed parcel to be sold en bloc to developers.

Mr Garcha's property portfolio will be worth $400 million to $500 million once the developments are completed.

He has 22 other properties - about half of which are good class bungalows - in prime areas such as Swettenham Road and Gallop Road. Most are in various stages of development.

Mr Garcha, who is the captain of the Singapore polo team, plans to build 20 houses on the Sentosa site, each with a rooftop pool.

The houses will have 10m glass frontages giving residents a clear view of the golf course.

Many of the homes the firm is building around Singapore will be rented out but

Mr Garcha intends to sell the Elevation Golf Villas for $9 million to $10 million each once they are completed around 2010.

These numbers are dwarfed by the price tag of two other properties he owns - bungalows in Nassim Road designed by world-renowned architect Zaha Hadid.

These houses, with a built- up space of 10,000 sq ft, will probably sell for $40 million to $50 million, he said.

The bungalows, now at the design stage, are expected to be ready by 2010. They are Ms Hadid's first residential project in Asia, said Mr Garcha.

'She was very excited about Singapore,' he said.

The Iraqi-born architect, known for projects such as the classic Vitra Fire Station in Germany, had worked on the masterplan for Singapore's science hub one-north.

When Mr Garcha first came to Singapore, he was intent only on playing polo.

He had sold his information technology company people.com in late 2000 to TMP Worldwide, a recruitment advertising business.

He then set up his own polo team that competed around the globe.

Mr Garcha used part of his dot.com windfall - he will not disclose his firm's sale price - to enter property development about three years ago when he saw the opportunities.

'I saw a lot of value in the property market. Prices were at a 10-year low,' he said.

Mr Garcha, who is of Indian descent, has become a Singapore citizen.

joyceteo@sph.com.sg