Property Malaysia

Sentul is an area which carries different connotations to different people. Many people see it as an old lower-middle class area of KL, a town built around the old KTM station, staff quarters and a Little India enclave. For those unfamiliar with this place, Sentul is a charming place, bordered by the Pekeliling flats along Jalan Tun Razak on one side (with the landmark Dynasty Hotel), Segambut on the other side, and Setapak on the other end. Further on Jalan Sentul will bring you to Batu Caves area.

Today Sentul is more known for its traffic jams, the historic Tamil Methodist Church, and rows of old shophouses, and old KTM quarters. So it would come to be quite a surprise for someone to come across Sentul East and West by the mega-corporation YTL right in the middle of this area.

YTL has acquired a huge piece of 291acre land comprising of many parcels here, surrounding the old Sentul train station, workshop, and the other pieces of prime land around it. YTL, owned by the Yeoh family, one of the richest families in Malaysia. The conglomerate has come out with an impressive master layout plan for this entire development, with a lot of facilities and wide green spaces, parks, lakes, and architectural touches that really sets this place apart from any other project we can think of.

A review like cannot cover the entire Sentul West and East, when this place is more developed we will try to do a development review for the whole project (as what we did for Bandar Puteri and Bandar Kinrara). At the moment, a lot of parcels are marked as future development. Aside from that there is the KL Performing Arts Centre (KLPac, re-built from an old facing brick building), the sprawling Sentul Park (which was previously a golf course), with the water course and the Koi Centre.

This is the third major residential launch in the Sentul East and West massive development. First there was the Tamarind, which is located next to this Saffron in Sentul East. Tamarind is already completed, and you can see the two towers as you drive along Jalan Sentul. There are only a handful of units left over from this project. The second one is the more luxurious Maple, (sales about 85% at the time of viewing) this one is located at Sentul West, right next to the one acre Sentul Park. They will be handing over the keys to the purchasers in the next month or two.

The Saffron is 4 towers of 17 and 24 storey condominiums, all either 3+1 or 4+1.

In terms of facilities, there is not much to shout about, only the usual fare. But they have this geometrically inspired playground and 3 different well-designed pools for everyone. The 30-acre Sentul Park in the West side is an enclosed area only of residents. Block A & C have 8 units per floor, while B has 6 and D has an exclusive 3. Units range from 1,000sq.ft to 1,873sq.ft. What we can see is that they’ve limited the size of the units to a smaller range, presumably to keep the pricing affordable. With that in mind, they are also providing the units with bare finishes (not even airconditioning provided, but the pipings are there). The pricing starts from RM240psf, which works out to be about RM260k onwards. This pricing structure makes it accessible for the young urban set, and also competitive enough to attract the investors.

There is a small park next to the Saffron specially for the residents, something not provided for Tamarind.

The units are pretty nicely laid out, the general feel of it is simplistic, rectangularish, with tall windows, similar to the what you see at Lake Edge.

Units get one parking spot, larger ones get max of two, RM16k for an additional parking spot. RM0.25psf maintenance fee.

For accessibility, there is the Sentul KTM Komuter Station right in the middle of it, the Sentul LRT Station within walking distance, and the proposed Sentul Link under construction. KLCC is just less than 10 minutes away (normal traffic) and major highways are all around.

To be frank with you, we sort of fell in love with this place. From the entrance and the colonial style old buildings used by the developer, to the wide green spaces all around, the ambience grabs your attention immediately. But of course, the unit sizes could have been bigger, and if they had thrown in some freebies like cabinets or better finishes, it would have been much better. But for this price, there are many good things going for it – freehold, facilities, thoughtful planning. Some people have aversion to Sentul, so for them other development may look more attractive. In our opinion, YTL has done a great job to transform this area into what it is now. YTL (and its bosses) has their fair share of detractors, but personally we feel and the company certainly has what it takes make a huge project like this successful. According to them, they envision it to be the ‘SOHO of Malaysia’.

YTL has numerous other projects all over the Klang Valley, like the Bintang Walk, Lake Edge in Puchong, Pantai Hillpark and Lakefields in Sungai Besi.

The Saffron, just like the Tamarind, is named after the commonly used spice. It’s from the purple crocus flower, and the spice names are a reflection of the numerous old spice shops in the Sentul town.

YTL Land and Development was formerly Taiping Consolidation, and Sentul East West was previously known as Sentul Raya. It was stalled a few times since the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. When the project was initially launched in 1995, it was estimated to be worth RM1.3billion. Recently the management has noted that it is now about RM6billion. When the entire development is completed in 8 years time, it is estimated to be home to 50,000 residents in 7,000 homes (although these estimates seem to differ from various reports).