Source: Business Times
A NEW benchmark in per-room pricing may have been set in the Singapore hotel market: The 134-room SO/ Singapore, which sits opposite Lau Pa Sat in the Central Business District (CBD), is being sold for about S$1.8 million per key, making for a total price of some S$240 million.
Located at the corner of Robinson Road and Boon Tat Street and known as Sofitel So Singapore before it was rebranded, the property is on a site with about 49 years left on its lease.
The hotel is being sold by Royal Group, which clinched the landmark 60-year leasehold conservation building formerly known as Ogilvy Centre at a state tender in 2011. The group developed it into the hotel, which opened its doors in 2014.
The buyer is understood to be Viva Land group*.
Viva Land also bought Robinson Point, a 21-storey freehold office building next to SO/ Singapore hotel,for S$500 million in a deal completed in 2021.
Market watchers say Viva Land’s acquisition of the SO/ Singapore may bear positively on the redevelopment potential of Robinson Point under the government’s CBD Incentive Scheme, which aims to spur owners of older, predominantly office buildings in some parts of the CBD to redevelop their properties into mixed-use projects. The idea is to inject a live-in population and liven up the area in the evenings and on weekends.