7 storey Freehold Fortuna Hotel at the corner of Serangoon Road and Owen Roadis expected to change hands soon at S$85.8 million or ~S$809,000 per key.
The property’s existing GFA of 47,990 sq ft is 5.76 times the 8,332 sq ft total land area (2 land lots). This exceeds the 3.0 gross plot ratio – the ratio of maximum GFA to site area – for the site, which is zoned for hotel use, under the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Master Plan 2019.
Fortuna Hotel could potentially be redeveloped up to the existing GFA. While there is no untapped GFA, there is potential to extract greater value from the asset by increasing the number of rooms.
Fortuna Hotel’s 106 rooms range from 183 sq ft to 527 sq ft. The average room size of 280 sq ft is considered to be relatively large for a mid-tier hotel, and this presents an opportunity for the incoming owners to carve out more rooms, say market watchers. One possibility would be to have loft rooms and reposition the hotel as a hip boutique property.
By some estimates, it could cost about S$25 million to build a new hotel on the site.
The 106-room hotel is being bought by an entity equally owned by JMD Holdings and an associate of TCRE Partners. The hotel is being sold by an entity of the Chng family that also owns the Fortuna Hotel in Hanoi.
JMD Holdings is owned by 3 members of the Wang family – the paternal relatives of Charles and Keith Wong, the founders of the Charles & Keith fashion label.
TCRE Partners, a real estate investment and management outfit set up in 2017, is owned by the family of co-founder Nicholas Yeo.
A stone’s throw from the hotel, an entity linked to Satinder Garcha bought The Claremont Hotel in 2019 at S$68 million (or about S$755,000 per room). The property is being spruced up and could potentially be rebranded.
Asia Pacific Hotels 