313@somerset draws more people than expected

ORCHARD Road newcomer 313@somerset has received a higher than expected nine million visitors since it opened three months ago, the mall’s owner, Lend Lease Group, said yesterday.

‘When we first did the research three years ago, we were expecting something like 60,000-70,000 (visitors) a day. But now, the average is about 100,000 a day,’ said Ooi Eng Peng, executive officer for retail and investment management in Asia for Australia-based Lend Lease.

The 301,000 square foot mall is fully leased at ‘market rents’. Lend Lease won the retail site above Somerset MRT station in a government tender in 2006 with its top bid of $617.2 million. The mall had its official opening yesterday and now Lend Lease is on the lookout for more sites.

‘We are very committed to Singapore and we hope we can get more land to build retail malls here,’ said Mr Ooi. ‘But the market landscape is quite competitive, everybody is trying (to get more land).’

Lend Lease, in particular, hopes to grow its presence in the suburban retail space, said Mr Ooi: ‘If you look at our model around the world, we are very much focused on suburban malls.’

In Singapore, Lend Lease also has Parkway Parade Shopping Mall in its retail portfolio. But the company is not placing all its bets on the retail scene here – it also has plans to grow into other regional markets.

‘For the next three years . . . we are very focused on three countries – China, Malaysia and Singapore,’ said Mr Ooi. ‘Singapore retail is very competitive because retail malls here are very tightly held. And China is a very big market for us. We are not rushing there but with our skills in retail, hopefully we can get some advantage in China.’

Lend Lease hopes to have a retail presence in China by the end of this year. And in Malaysia, Lend Lease has teamed up with property group SP Setia to build a RM750 million (S$311 million) retail mall in Setia City, in the Setia Alam township in Shah Alam.

Source : Business Times – 4 Mar 2010