Another great example of govt transparency
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Size of winning bid colours green project
CityDev consortium clinches deal while a bigger bid fails to make the cut
By KALPANA RASHIWALA
(SINGAPORE) As a new symbol of environmentally-friendly architecture was unveiled yesterday, green became the topic of discussion in more ways than one. The award of the former NCO Club/Beach Road camp grounds to a City Developments consortium was accompanied by a tinge of envy as observers pointed out that the winning land bid of nearly $1.69 billion is believed to be around $500 million lower than the top bid, which was not even short-listed under the two-envelope tender.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority chose to first evaluate the various concepts before looking at the money on the table.
CityDev and its partners Istithmar (part of the Dubai World Group) and El-Ad Group are expected by market watchers to invest a total sum of $2.5 billion or more in the project. They plan to develop two towers (45- and 42-storeys high) - that are expected to house two luxury hotels, offices and apartments - and restore four conservation buildings (for retail and hotel-related uses like function rooms).
The cutting-edge green features in the Foster & Partners-designed scheme include slanting facades for the towers to catch winds and direct air flow to ground-level spaces, a canopy covering open areas, linking conservation buildings with two high-rise towers and providing shelter from the elements and drawing air currents to cool the area beneath it. And water will be collected off the towers and the canopy to flow into a holding tank underground, instead of being wasted.
The development, to be called South Beach, is set to become a 'revolutionary New Eco-Quarter in Singapore' when it is completed by 2012, CityDev said.
Still, the price of the winning bid came under some scrutiny.
Of the seven bids on the table, only two - that of the CityDev consortium and a joint venture between Keppel Land and Cheung Kong Holdings - made it past the concept evaluation stage. That is when URA moved onto the second stage of the two-envelope process to award the tender to the higher bidder.
The Keppel Land-Cheung Kong bid was worth $1.39 billion while the CityDev consortium's bid of $1.69 billion was comfortably higher and clinched the deal for it. The winning bid for the 3.5 hectare plot with a 99-year leasehold tenure worked out to $1,069 per square foot of potential gross floor area.
The top bid, believed to be more than $2 billion, had come from one of the other five who tendered but did not make it past the concept stage. They included: a JV between Pontiac Land Group and Morgan Stanley; CapitaLand; another JV between Keppel Land and Cheung Kong; and two bids by Overseas Union Enterprise.
URA said that overall, the CityDev consortium's concept proposal offers a 'compelling and attractive scheme' that would create a 'truly distinctive development and an exemplary showcase of 'green' architecture in Singapore'.
CityDev executive chairman Kwek Leng Beng said: 'We are confident that South Beach will elevate Singapore's unique branding as a global city and help attract more prominent investors from all over the world.'
CityDev, Istithmar and El-Ad will each hold a one-third stake in the project. CityDev is no stranger to its partners. El-Ad is a US property investment group controlled by Yitzhak Tshuva, to whom CityDev's hotel arm Millennium & Copthorne Hotels sold its stake in The Plaza hotel in New York in August 2004. City e-Solutions, a hospitality business unit of CityDev's parent Hong Leong Group, and Istithmar are partners in a venture that plans to open no-frills hotels in Southeast Asia under Tony Fernandes's Tune Hotels.Com brand.
The development on the 3.5 hectare Beach Road site will be directly next to the Circle Line Esplanade MRT Station and will also be linked by an underground pedestrian network to the existing City Hall MRT Interchange Station. The site can be developed into a maximum gross floor area of 1.58 million sq ft. CB Richard Ellis executive director Li Hiaw Ho reckoned that the developers will sell the apartments to help part-finance the project.
URA said the attractive first-storey layout in the winning scheme includes a series of internal streets, sunken courtyards and tiered gardens lined with shops, and food and beverage outlets. It said the development will be potentially able to achieve a Green Mark Platinum rating, the highest here for buildings that feature energy-efficient, water-efficient and environmentally-friendly design.
'The undulating geometry of the environmental filter canopy is designed to help induce cooling air currents through the spaces below' and the canopy as well as building facades will incorporate photovoltaic cells (solar cells), it added. -
Despite having 2 GLCs involve in this tender, one even offer a higher big of $2b, CDL and his partners (all non GCLs) won the bid.
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The buildings look quite transparent
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It is so transparent that they have expanded overseas!
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Noted.
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Now, tell me how this is relevant to the CPF thing and so forth? As it is, GLC is still a bottomless black pit.
Apparently, the idiot Gazelle hasn't learnt his lesson on how not to post rubbish. -
nice building anyway, currently that place looks terribleOriginally posted by Fingolfin_Noldor:Now, tell me how this is relevant to the CPF thing and so forth? As it is, GLC is still a bottomless black pit.
Apparently, the idiot Gazelle hasn't learnt his lesson on how not to post rubbish. -
there is a pig moving around above you waiting to get laid. Are you free?Originally posted by Fingolfin_Noldor:Now, tell me how this is relevant to the CPF thing and so forth? As it is, GLC is still a bottomless black pit.
Apparently, the idiot Gazelle hasn't learnt his lesson on how not to post rubbish. -
Huh ?Originally posted by Fingolfin_Noldor:Now, tell me how this is relevant to the CPF thing and so forth? As it is, GLC is still a bottomless black pit.
Apparently, the idiot Gazelle hasn't learnt his lesson on how not to post rubbish. -
What pig? This pig? Which I set aflame and sending right to you? They do make good weapons, including frightening elephants.Originally posted by Gazelle:there is a pig moving around above you waiting to get laid. Are you free? -
Gazelle likes to post something to exhort the good things about the PAP, and then turns a blind eye to the other things. As if one small positive outweighs one big negative. Plus, it's a RED HERRING ARGUMENT.Originally posted by kramnave:Huh ? -
Please don't demean the righteous name of Spiderpig in your online flaming.
Thank you. -
Nice drawing, but if it's going to be real, please pray hard that SG won't sink due to global warming.
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Your point ?Originally posted by Gazelle:Despite having 2 GLCs involve in this tender, one even offer a higher big of $2b, CDL and his partners (all non GCLs) won the bid. -
Originally posted by Lin Yu:
I am just as puzzled by his words too. And he represent 'Them'?
Another Transparency?
[b]
[/b] give them a bad name. 
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such a poor little cry babyOriginally posted by Fingolfin_Noldor:Gazelle likes to post something to exhort the good things about the PAP, and then turns a blind eye to the other things. As if one small positive outweighs one big negative. Plus, it's a RED HERRING ARGUMENT.
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If I am a cry baby, you must be some aborted fetus.Originally posted by Gazelle:such a poor little cry baby
Go back to school, if you are even able, and go learn how to argue properly. Else, stay dead or find a coffin. -
Originally posted by Fingolfin_Noldor:Now, tell me how this is relevant to the CPF thing and so forth? As it is, GLC is still a bottomless black pit.
Apparently, the idiot Gazelle hasn't learnt his lesson on how not to post rubbish. -
With so much glass being used for this project - is the environment being considered ?Originally posted by Gazelle:
[b]Size of winning bid colours green project
CityDev consortium clinches deal while a bigger bid fails to make the cut
By KALPANA RASHIWALA
How much heat will be reflected or refracted to the neighboring environment from the vast glass surfaces covering the entire project - vertically and horizontally ?
From the artist photo, the low level mall area will feature transparent glass roof that cover the entire low level mall area. In our equatorial environment, how much energy will be needed - and how much waste heat will be emitted into the environment - in the required effort to cool the interior space of the vast glass covered low rise mall area ?
The Esplanade was a typical project with the primary design being a collaboaration between a foreign and local architect - and the initial foreign input having little idea of the local environment.
This has required late modification to its original all-glass design, by fitting triangular shades to each individually framed glass roof panel that will provide cover to prevent sunlight from heating up the interior of the Esplanade.
The late additions resulted in the Esplanade looking less complimentary to its cultural elistist image with an external image of it being like the multi-facetted eye of a Fly, or the the eggs of a c0ckroach. SM GCT had hoped to soften the criticism of the design by likening it to the local king of fruits; unfortunately, his suggestion had the smell of the fruit being associated with the negative aspects of the Esplanade.
Why will the Government not accept bids higher than this winning bid ?
Who are the members of the selection committee in deciding this Winning Bid ?
Are they qualified professionals from Singapore, or simply Ministers or Civil Servants with hardly any clue concerning design, engineering functions and impact to our environment ?
Transparency in a ONE Party Political Environment ?
Is this not another wayang kulit show ?
Is this not another characterisitc shadow play - Singapore Style ?
In any shadow plays, the flitting shadows will be projected behind a less than white screen, when one will only see what has been decided for the plot of the projected shadow play; while the essential light is kept low and the mechanisms kept out-of-sight.
Only the easily impressionable one-dimensional mind will find entertainment and will be absorbed by such shadow plays. -
yup, the building looks transparent alright..
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Obviously the sheep in this forum have choosen not to talk about why Singapore government didnt award this tender to the top bidder of this project, which is $300m more than CDL, and coming from a GLC. They are not become design and urban development critics...
If our ministers are as greedy and corrupted as what the sheep are saying then I am sure they would have gone for the additional $300m isnt it?
For that amount, we could pay for 150 years of PM salary isnt it? -
GLC to Government sounds right to you ?Originally posted by Gazelle:Obviously the sheep in this forum have choosen not to talk about why Singapore government didnt award this tender to the top bidder of this project, which is $300m more than CDL, and coming from a GLC. They are not become design and urban development critics...
If our ministers are as greedy and corrupted as what the sheep are saying then I am sure they would have gone for the additional $300m isnt it?
For that amount, we could pay for 150 years of PM salary isnt it? -
Maybe he just lost out on his performance bonus..that's why the niggling lil chap is bitter.Originally posted by Trump_Card:GLC to Government sounds right to you ? -
If our ministers and government are as greedy and corrupted as what the sheep have described then why should the government care where the money comes from. $300 million is not a small sum.Originally posted by Trump_Card:GLC to Government sounds right to you ?
Further more, the bidder is a JV between two private companies and GLC and Capitaland is also a public listed company. (Pontiac Land Group and Morgan Stanley; CapitaLand)