Property Malaysia

When Kiaraville was launched some time back, there was quite a buzz about it especially with the investor market. We were actually suitably impressed with it, to be frank, you can read our review about it here. Even at the launch, the sales people were already talking of another project loosely called Kiaraville’s ‘second phase’ in the adjacent piece of land.

They now launched that project and it is called Seni. To correct the misconception, it isn’t really the Phase 2 of Kiaraville, although it is by the same developers (via a different subsidiary), even Capitaland is also involved. It seems like they are almost everywhere in this negihbourhood, aren’t they? Ireka has taken the feedback from Kiaraville (and probably from Tiffani) and incorporated them into a most updated project here.

The first two things you notice about the place are the location, and the density of the project. It is sited almost to the end of Jalan Kiara, which means it is just next to the highway. That in itself is both good and not so good – good in the sense that there will probably not be anymore high-rise condo around it, since that all sides are pretty much accounted for in terms of development. Not so good, too in that it will lose out in appeal when compared to the other projects that don’t have to contend with highways.

Seni has the luxury of a large piece of land for this area, about 9 acres in total, and they are designed it with landscaping being the primary concept element (landscaping takes up about a third of the land use). There are 4 towers of condo blocks here, all named after famous artists – Monet, Van Gogh, Dali and Picasso. Gee, kind of pretentious to name your product like that, but then again, they used Picasso for a car anyway. Well at least they didn’t go for Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Raphael and Donatello (It’s okay if you turtle-y don’t catch the joke).

Picasso and Van Gogh are high rise towers, up to about 40 floors, located on the west side of the development, and the other two are lower rise 10 storey on the east. The 4 blocks look down onto a expansive common area where there are two large swimming pools, and a host of other facilities. The area looks densely landscaped, and we think it’ll look quite impressive when ready, given their commitment to make it an ‘island concept’. What’s that, no man is an island, you say? Okay, okay, we’ll lay off the corny jokes. But the thrust here is lots of shady trees and running water to give that insular effect.

In terms of facilities, they have the space to make it impressive, giving what their competitors are unable to. There are tennis courts, jogging tracks, a grand entrance foyer, the works. We like the entrance statement, that’s a carry over from Kiaraville.

The units all face the pool. So the western blocks don’t get the sun, and the eastern blocks are shaded from the higher blocks. Makes good sense, we say, as they focus the attention on their own development, without so much emphasis on ‘KLCC view‘ or ‘Mont’Kiara view‘, or in this case, ‘Sprint Highway view‘.

The two higher blocks have six units per floor, while the other two have 4 and 8 each respectively. At the moment, only Block A (”Van Gogh“!) is open for sale, and it is the one nearest to the entrance. There are less unit types here in Seni as compared with Kiaraville and some of the other neighbouring development around here, and there have roughly the same internal layout with the overall build-up being different. Actually, most of the units come with both a lanai and terrace, how’s that your complicating your choice…

There are basically 5 unit types from 2,336 to 3,520sq.ft, and some are only available for certain blocks. The 2,906sq.ft. variant comes with a choice of either a lanai or a terrace, I would think the former would be a more popular choice given the buying trend these days. All units come with a large private lift lobby and entrance foyer, and for most units, the lift is privately your own for that floor.

All units have at least 4+1 rooms, some have a family area (with it’s own private terrace and bath even) that can also be converted into a study. There’s lots of windows, and the layout is very pleasing, can’t really complain about any aspect of it. Certainly much preferable to Tiffani’s ‘long and narrow’ design.

As with Kiaraville, we were impressed by this place. The developers are throwing in lots of freebies like cabinets and appliances, we were very surprised by the fact that a lot more than usual is given. Seni has really set another bar for the other condos to play catch-up with, certainly by pulling out all the stops. They didn’t market Bernard Chandran or Fann Wong this time, though, but they did name-drop Chef Wan (what, couldn’t get Jamie Olivier to agree?).

You can get a unit from RM1.4million onwards. Given the facilities and the packages offered, we have to say it’s hard for the current crop of competitors to up this one, unless you are partial to landed properties. Certainly you’ve heard of the ‘Mont’Kiara is running out of land‘ line for some years now, but the location here is still decent, since there surrounding is pretty much development, some it with landed properties even.