The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) today awarded the tender for the commercial and residential site at Holland Road to Stirling Land Holdings Pte. Ltd., Stirling View Pte. Ltd. (as Trustee of Commons SR Trust) and Stirling Property Pte. Ltd. (as Trustee of Commons Commercial Trust).

Land parcel at Holland Road

Holland Village is one of Singapore’s endearing Identity Nodes and a distinctive lifestyle destination. The land parcel at Holland Road, intended for a mixed-use and pedestrian-oriented development, will add vibrancy and extend the existing Identity Node. See details of the site in Annex A [PDF, 87kb]. The future development is envisioned to build on and reinforce the success of Holland Village by enhancing the area’s buzz with more activity generating uses such as retail and dining options, and providing more residences in the heart of Holland Village.

Concept and Price Revenue tender

In line with this vision, URA had adopted a Concept and Price Revenue tender to shortlist compelling development concepts that are attractive and complementary to the adjacent low rise and street-oriented character of Holland Village (see Annex B [PDF, 215kb] on the details of Concept and Price Revenue tender system and evaluation criteria). At the first stage of the tender process, those Concept Proposals that had substantially satisfied the evaluation criteria were shortlisted by the Concept Evaluation Committee (CEC) to proceed to the second stage of tender evaluation. At the second stage, only the price envelopes of the shortlisted Concept Proposals were opened for consideration. The site would then be awarded to the tenderer with the highest bid among the tenderers with shortlisted Concept Proposals.

Details of tender

The Concept and Price Revenue tender for the subject site at Holland Road was launched for sale on 30 November 2017 and its tender had closed on 20 March 2018. A total of 15 Concept Proposals from 10 tenderers were received for the site as some tenderers submitted multiple Concept Proposals.

Evaluation of Concept Proposals

Following the close of the tender, all tenderers were given the opportunity to present their proposals to the CEC and for CEC to seek the necessary clarifications. The CEC concluded that the five Concept Proposals submitted by the following tenderers had substantially satisfied the evaluation criteria and should proceed to the second stage of the tender evaluation:

i. Stirling Land Holdings Pte. Ltd., Stirling View Pte. Ltd. (as Trustee of Commons SR Trust) and Stirling Property Pte. Ltd. (as Trustee of Commons Commercial Trust). (Tender Reference 33)

ii. Maven Resources Pte. Ltd. and Riviera Resources Pte. Ltd. (Tender Reference 83)

iii. PQJ Retail Management Pte. Ltd. (as Trustee-Manager of PQJ Retail Trust) and PQJ Residential Development Pte. Ltd. (Tender Reference 98)

iv. Tulip Residential Development Pte. Ltd. and Tulip Trustee Pte. Ltd. (as the Trustee-Manager of Tulip Commercial Trust). (Tender Reference 28)

v. Schagen Commercial Development Pte. Ltd. and Bergen Residential Development Pte. Ltd. (Tender Reference 07)

The five shortlisted tenderers submitted strong overall development concepts and architectural designs that responded appropriately to the site context. All these schemes took selective and appropriate references of the site context to inform the proposed building forms, layouts, massing strategies and / or architectural expression. This resulted in sensitive extensions of the existing low-rise, fine-grained and street-oriented character of Holland Village. These schemes also maintained a human-scale environment along the pedestrian streets, thereby creating interesting and active street frontages, while incorporating high quality landscaping. The public spaces were well located and designed to be attractive spaces for events and public use. The tenderers and lead architects for these schemes also have good track records in designing, developing and managing good quality mixed-use developments in Singapore or overseas.

Tendered land prices

The price envelopes of the five shortlisted tenderers were opened and the details of their price bids are shown in Annex C [PDF, 90kb]. In accordance with the Concept and Price Revenue tender system, the Holland Road site is awarded to Stirling Land Holdings Pte. Ltd., Stirling View Pte. Ltd. (as Trustee of Commons SR Trust) and Stirling Property Pte. Ltd. (as Trustee of Commons Commercial Trust) which submitted the highest bid of $1,213,333,000.00 among the five shortlisted tenderers.

Concept Proposal of the successful tenderer

The building form and massing of the scheme allowed the development to sit comfortably with the existing Holland Village. The shophouse street block, reinterpreted as a basic module building block of the proposed development, were laid out according to the existing Holland Village street block grid, resulting in a complementary site layout to the existing Holland Village.

The public spaces also form a series of unique street experiences that would extend the street experience of the existing Holland Village. The future development features a series of ground floor public spaces divided into 3 zones, with each zone anchored by a main public space. Specifically, “Commons Square” which can hold events such as weekend markets and outdoor performances, “Communal Green” which is a courtyard flanked by shops leading to a Water Court and a terraced water feature, and “Pocket Park” which opens into Lorong Mambong in Holland Village.

A series of connected open walkways will also be implemented to connect these public spaces to the surrounding areas. Through street-paving design, the existing Lorong Liput and Lorong Mambong will be extended into the future development, thus creating a consistent and distinctive streetscape for the larger Holland Village precinct.

Overall, the Concept Proposal by Stirling Land Holdings Pte. Ltd., Stirling View Pte. Ltd. (as Trustee of Commons SR Trust) and Stirling Property Pte. Ltd. (as Trustee of Commons Commercial Trust) is compelling in its design concept and planning of the public realm (see Annex D [PDF, 600kb]).