CapitaLand, through its wholly owned shopping-mall business CapitaLand Mall Asia, has signed its first third-party shopping centre-management contract in Singapore to run the new SingPost Centre.
Described as a world-first, Singapore Post is currently building the 25,000 sqm shopping centre which will allow online and offline retailers to showcase their products, side by side.
The SingPost mall marks the third management contract CapitaLand has inked in about six months, the other two being in China.
With this contract, CapitaLand’s network in Singapore will increase to 20 malls with a combined gross floor area (GFA), excluding parking, of about 14.2 million sqft (1.3 million sqm).
CapitaLand Mall Asia CEO Jason Leow says the signing of its first third-party mall management contract in Singapore – also its third across Asia in quick succession – shows the scalability of the group’s asset-light expansion strategy to grow assets under management.
SingPost Centre is in the eastern part of Singapore, where CapitaLand owns and manages three malls – Tampines Mall in Tampines Regional Centre, Bedok Mall in the rejuvenated Bedok Town Centre and Jewel Changi Airport, scheduled to open in early 2019.
Five-storey mall
Under the contract, CapitaLand will oversee the pre-opening and retail management for the five-storey SingPost Centre mall, which has 269,000 sqft of GFA, excluding parking, and a net lettable area of about 175,000 sqft.
“With CapitaLand as our mall manager, we will be able to optimise the returns from this property while we focus our attention on our core business of postal services and e-commerce logistics,” says SingPost covering group CEO Mervyn Lim.
Targeted to open in the second half of this year, SingPost Centre will house the new General Post Office, which combines traditional counter service with technology-enabled innovations such as PopStations.
Other tenants at SingPost Centre include Golden Village, Kopitiam, NTUC FairPrice, retail brands, family entertainment outlets and enrichment centres.
