4 floors to be added to conserved Golden Mile Complex
Four storeys will be added to the conserved Golden Mile Complex, along with a new 45-storey residential tower named Aurea.
On Aug 29, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) granted developer GMC Property – a joint venture between Perennial Holdings, Far East Organization and Sino Land – permission to add four storeys of office space to the complex, which was gazetted for conservation in October 2021 and will be renamed The Golden Mile.
The developer was also given permission to build Aurea, a 188-unit condominium, which will be connected to the original Golden Mile Complex via a link bridge.
At the point of its conservation, URA said Golden Mile Complex, which was completed in 1973, is “considered one of the most architecturally, historically and socially significant modern buildings in Singapore”.
URA added then that the complex “is a symbol of the architectural and engineering ingenuity of Singapore’s pioneer generation of building professionals”, who included principal architects Tay Kheng Soon, Gan Eng Oon and William Lim, then of home-grown firm Design Partnership, which is today DP Architects – the firm working on Golden Mile Complex’s rejuvenation and the new condominium tower.
The 16-storey building was the first large-scale strata-titled building to be conserved in Singapore. Conserved buildings cannot be demolished, and works carried out on them have to comply with guidelines set by the URA.
Perennial Holdings, Far East Organization and Sino Land had in May 2022 purchased Golden Mile Complex for $700 million in a collective sale, which came with a package of incentives that were unique to the complex, to support the commercial viability of reusing it following the sale.
At the time, URA said the incentives included lease renewal to a fresh 99-year one, bonus gross floor area resulting in a one-third increase over the site’s original development intensity, and a partial development charge waiver on the additional floor area. The agency had said that a new 30-storey residential tower was a possibility.
Asked why a 45-storey tower was allowed instead, URA told The Straits Times it “had assessed that the proposed designs, including the new height of the residential tower as well as the materiality and facade treatment of the new extension, were in line with conservation requirements and within technical height controls”.
URA added that when it evaluates redevelopment proposals for conserved buildings and sites, it seeks to ensure that “future developments are sensitively designed and integrated meaningfully with conserved buildings and that the land use of the site is optimised”.
The agency’s data shows that The Golden Mile and Aurea will have a combined gross floor area of 79,577.17 sq m, of which 20,457.77 sq m comes from bonus schemes, including 16,269.48 sq m that was offered as part of the conservation incentive package.
Of the total floor area, 52,062.98 sq m will be used for commercial purposes, of which about 70 per cent will be used as offices, and the rest as retail spaces and medical units.
Another 25,191.96 sq m will be for residential use, and 2,322.23 sq m will be used as an architectural centre.
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