Frasers Property is said to be close to inking a deal to buy Cuppage Terrace, a row of 17 conservation shophouses off Orchard Road, next to The Centrepoint.

The price is understood to be somewhere between S$175 million and S$180 million.

Cuppage Terrace is on a 28,986 square foot site with 61 years and nine months left on its lease.

Why Cuppage Terrace matters to Frasers Property

Clinching Cuppage Terrace would enlarge Frasers Property’s presence in the area, ahead of the group’s plans to potentially redevelop the stretch that would also include the front and rear blocks of The Centrepoint and 51 Cuppage Road, a 10-storey office building linked to The Centrepoint’s rear block.

Cuppage Terrace, which Frasers Property is expected to bag soon, faces The Centrepoint’s rear block, which Frasers Property recently bought out through a S$391.9 million collective sale.

Cuppage Terrace has about 50,891 sq ft of total lettable area, including an outdoor refreshment area exceeding 12,000 sq ft in size.

Outdoor refreshment areas

Based on the asset’s gross floor area (excluding the outdoor area) of nearly 35,000 sq ft, the price is expected to work out to about S$5,000 per square foot.

Raj Kumar’s Royal Holdings Organisation owns Cuppage Terrace, which has food and beverage outlets on the ground floor and hotel rooms above. The asset has a 85 m road frontage along Cuppage Road.

CBRE conducted an expression-of-interest exercise, which closed on Feb 12, to find a buyer for Cuppage Terrace.

In late February, Frasers Property was awarded the collective sale tender for the rear block of The Centrepoint, comprising retail space and apartments on an L-shaped plot with about 52 years left on its 99-year lease. The collective sale is pending approval by the Strata Titles Board.

Before the collective sale, Frasers Property already owned part of the rear block. It held all the 66 strata retail units and eight out of the 66 apartments, adding up to about 52 per cent of the strata area and about 85 per cent of the share value in the rear block.

In the freehold front block, where The Centrepoint’s remaining 151 retail strata units are located, Frasers Property owns about 96 per cent each of the strata area and the share value.

Last week, the Singapore-listed property group controlled by the family of Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, unveiled plans to restructure the portfolio of assets under Frasers Hospitality Trust, which was privatised last year.