One Sophia, a new mixed-use project being built on the site of the old Peace Centre at 1 Sophia Road, SingHaiyi and its joint venture partners will start its preview on Oct 2024.
Comprising 122 strata-titled office flats and 127 strata retail units, the 13-story commercial skyscraper will be While the office apartments occupy the remaining 11 stories, the retail stores will be housed on a two-story retail platform. Additionally there will be a three-story parking with 273 lots of spaces.
Although the office spaces range from 720 to 4,530 square feet, around half of the units fall between 721 and 1,614 square feet.
According to Tan Hong Boon of JLL Singapore, the variety of unit sizes One Sophia offers has drawn a broad spectrum of end-users and investor profiles. One of the marketing agencies, JLL brokerage the collective sales of Peace Mansion and Peace Centre.
“For the need in this region, the unit sizes make sense. According to Tan, our staff is counselling a few customers contemplating buying out a whole floor and many others wanting to acquire numerous neighbouring flats.
Developer is assessing buying interest during the current private preview before publishing the sales price and the units that will be launched for sale. The developers have released an indicative pricing of $3,000 psf to $3,500 psf for office units on the third to fifth levels.
One Sophia stands for the commercial aspect of the forthcoming mixed-use development. The Collective at One Sophia is the residential part. Comprising two 19-story private residential tower buildings with 367 units, it features Residential spaces will run from one- to three-bedroom apartments as well as studios.
Next year is likely to see the Collective at One Sophia preview. Three separate Management Corporation Strata Title (MSCT) will also be in charge of managing the whole development, supervising the office, retail and residential sections.
With a cumulative selling value of $650 million in December 2021, a joint venture including CEL Development, SingHaiyi Crystal and Ultra Infinity effectively bought the old Peace Centre and neighbouring Peace Mansion, translating to $1,426 psf per plot ratio.
“One Sophia has attracted great interest from potential owner-occupiers and investors drawn in to the larger transforming potential it will bring to this area,” notes Tan.
One Sophia’s perfect position at the crossroads of Sophia Road and Selegie Road places her within quite close proximity to Bras Basah, Bugis, Dhoby Ghaut, and the Orchard Road retail strip. Four MRT stations—Dhoby Ghaut Interchange, Bencoolen, Brash Basah, and Rochor—are near to construction.
Since the property is just new and offers new strata commercial apartments for sale in the Orchard Road neighbourhood, investors have taken an eye to it. Given most freehold strata-titled office complexes in the region going for more than $4,000 psf, its price is also competitive.
One Sophia is a 99-year leasehold development, he says, but the suggested price is acceptable. “One Sophia also has an edge over the surrounding commercial buildings which maybe freehold but were not built to modern wellness and sustainability rules prevalent in new commercial buildings today,” explains Tan.
ADDP Architects and studioMilou called in by the developers realise the idea and design of One Sophia. Two luxuriously planted curvilinear planes that accentuate the vertical arrangement of gardens and office glass boxes fronting the business block define the architectural character. Direct access to garden terraces will be available only on the third, eighth, and 13th office level.
Usually, freshly constructed Grade A offices have ceiling height of about 4m, however at One Sophia the stratum units will be 3.1m high. While most new Grade A projects on the market claim the higher Green Mark Platinum accreditation, the property has also achieved Green Mark Gold Plus from BCA. Season parking will be accessible from the basement car park spaces shared with the residential buildings.
Regarding the retail curation, EdgeProp learns from industry sources that the developer plans to choose retail ideas and brand names. One Sophia has 127 retail spaces altogether spanning 90,000 square feet.
We are looking for both established brands that can provide fresh retail ideas and new market brands. The same industry source also said that the developers want to vary the retail offering at One Sophia by including leisure, wellness, and entertainment ideas.
