Eu Yan Sang Building in Chinatown for sale with guide price of $62.5m
TCM company's flagship store to be sold through expression of interest exercise
The Eu Yan Sang Building in Chinatown has been launched for sale with a guide price of $62.5 million, it was announced yesterday.
The building was erected in 1910, and it housed the first traditional Chinese medicine Eu Yan Sang outlet in Singapore set up by its founder Eu Tong Sen.
It was designed by architect Alfred Bidwell, who also drew up the plans for the Raffles Hotel and Victoria Memorial Hall.
The building is now a row of four conservation shophouses leased by Eu Yan Sang's flagship store, two hostels and a law firm.
The three-storey shophouses at 265 to 271 South Bridge Road are in the Telok Ayer conservation area and owned by EU Realty (Singapore), a unit of Eu Yan Sang International, said marketing agent JLL.
They sit on a combined land area of 6,262 sq ft and have a gross floor area of 19,885 sq ft.
There is also a 2,562 sq ft open terrace on the fourth floor that overlooks Chinatown.
The $62.5 million price guide works out to about $3,150 per sq ft (psf) based on gross floor area and $2,785 psf with the terrace included.
The sale will be done through an expression of interest exercise which closes at 3pm on Aug 27.
The land is zoned commercial so foreigners are eligible to buy. No additional buyer's stamp duty or seller's stamp duty will be imposed.
The vendor is proposing to offer the shophouses with a leasehold land tenure of 199 years.
Mr Clemence Lee, JLL's senior director of capital markets, said the new owner could undertake minor refurbishments, change the ground floor unit to food and beverage use or turn the second-floor office into a backpacker hostel, or use it for their own operations.
JLL said the shophouses, which are directly across from the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum, have a 23m-wide frontage in South Bridge Road.
The upcoming Maxwell MRT station on the new Thomson-East Coast Line is slated to open in 2021.
The property is also within walking distance to the Chinatown and Telok Ayer stations.
Recent freehold or 999-year sales in the area include 87 Club Street, which sold for $17.2 million or about $3,300 psf in January; 21 Boon Tat Street, which sold for $16.5 million or $4,258 psf last September; and 64 Club Street, which reaped $21.8 million or $3,880 psf last August.
- THE STRAITS TIMES
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