Preuksa plans Yaowarat condo

Ivy China Town

Preuksa Real Estate Plc (PS), the country’s second-largest developer, planned to launch a high-end condominium project worth one billion baht next week in Yaowarat area to tap wealthy ethnic Chinese families, said chief business executive Prasert Taedullayasatit.

He said the company was confident of the housing demand of its target group - wealthy families in the area, most of whom own gold shops and import-export businesses - as land plots for development into new residential projects were very scarce.

“Many business owners in Yaowarat need to buy houses in Phutthamonthon or Pin Klao areas, and more recently, on newly built Ratchapreuk Road, as there was no new supply nearby,” Mr Prasert said. “More than 200 ethnic Chinese families live here. Most of them prefer to live in Yaowarat where their family have lived for more than three generations.”

He added the economy in Yaowarat had been very active since late last year due to soaring gold prices.

The company expected to close sales of the new condominium in the next 3-6 months, longer than it normally does for a niche project with fewer than 70 units, due to unfavourable economic sentiment.

The company offers parking space for 194 cars for 69 units, taking into consideration a major problem in the area where a monthly rent for parking space for one car is up to 20,000 baht.

After it sent direct mail to target customers, owners of fixed deposit accounts of at least 50 million baht with Kasikornbank, around 300 walk-in visitors have visited the site, 10 of whom have booked the units.

Ivy China Town would be located on a 1.5-rai site on Maitreechit Road, 500 metres from the Hualampong MRT station, which PS paid around 400,000 baht per square wah to buy. Construction would start by the end of the year and be completed in mid-2011.

To cater to the needs of the customers, it would apply feng shui when designing the project while the architecture would be Neo-Renaissance. Sizes would be between 50-127 sq m and priced between 7-20 million baht.

“It’s one of the niche markets we plan to tap this year,” said Mr Prasert. “We will re-launch the Passorn single-housing brand by May after the brand has been frozen for three years. It will have a new design and be located closer than ever to central Bangkok.”

The first project will be in Rarm Intra with unit prices of between two to three million baht. PS will launch new brands for its luxury single houses to replace the Passorn brand which cater to the lower market at prices of 3 million baht instead of 5 million baht earlier.