Property Malaysia

A few years ago, when you mention the Saujana area, people would most likely first think of Hyatt Saujana, that hotel on the road leading towards the old Subang Airport. In recent years, this area has undergone rapid development, both as a golf resort-centric area, and a luxury home centre that is built around the greenery of the courses. As we mentioned in our earlier review of the nearby Amaya Saujana, the area is still quite low density, considering it is mainly the domain of golf courses there. More recently, there have been quite a number of bungalow projects and also the very prestigious Serai Saujana, while across the road, Sime Darby Properties has been slowly developing their Ara Damansara township.

Both Amaya and Hijauan Saujana can be seen as competing developments, as they were launched within a few months of each other, and in terms of pricing, it can be said to be almost similar. But one look at the overall scheme, the both developments are quite different in concept. Hijauan Saujana, while is considered to be part of the Saujana area, it is actually located on the other side of the NKVE. In order to get here, you need to turn off the old airport road, go through Saujana, and go through a viaduct below the highway. At the moment there is one one lane open, but when in operation there will be two lanes open.

Access then, not so straightforward. While it is located next to the existing landed homes on the Subang side, there won’t be an access road opened that direction. So the condo is sort of caught in a tight spot, right there next to the NKVE.

The land is quite large at 5.5 acres, but because of its triangular shape, with the entrance at the narrow tip, it is limits the possibilities of design in a sense. What they have done is have two long and narrow blocks of units along the border, while the bulk of the space in the center is used for common facilities. This design gives a very interesting block layout - the block is only one unit wide, and each set of double lifts service only two units per floor. This means each unit will have a higher degree of privacy compared to other condos, and you will also enjoy two sides of view for your home, and with the added bonus of double ventilation (not exactly cross ventilation, though).

The northern block has up to 10 units per floor, while the southern block has up to 8, all blocks has up to 11 levels of unit. On the ground floor, in addition to the carparking bays, there is this unique feature not seen anywhere else - each unit gets a small store room. Yep, that’s right, all lined up side by side. We can see the some practicality in it (you don’t have to bring up unnecessary stuff all the way up to your unit) but overall we reckon the space could have been used in a better way. After all the units here are quite big, and storage space may not be an issue, compared to, say, a 700sq.ft. apartment.

Units are either garden view or green view. The standard unit ranges from 1,722sq.ft and 1,830sq.ft, and are quite similar in design. They adhere to a quite elongated ‘L’ layout, mainly due to how the block is set out. There are executive penthouse units available, which are duplexes, and have an additional roof garden level. The typical units have at least 3+1 rooms, and all rooms come with attached bath.

As for facilities, they actually have a large area allocated, but due to the triangular shape, the pool is not very large. But they make up for it with a tennis court, lots of landscaped areas, and a clubhouse with the usual facilities.

On first impressions, we didn’t quite like the facade of the building, it had a look more suited to a low rise building, plus the color of pastel light green-white was an odd choice. But maybe they were going for the ‘golf’ theme there. At 200 units, it isn’t high density, but the location, as we mentioned, may work against its favour. But there aren’t many other condos around here, and they may do well to target the Japanese expatriate market due to the proximity to the international school (the show units were decorated to strains of Japanese flavour).

Price is from about RM600k to RM1.8m. We think it may not be so accessible. But then again this is Saujana. The developer has just complete another project further down the road, Maplewoods, which is an upmarket bungalow development.

£100million penthouse.

Hyde Park, London.

£6,000 per square foot.

Private wine-tasting facility.

One awesome view.

Read it here.

The area leading to the old Subang Airport has seen some accelerated development ever since the KLIA took over as the main international airport. In the mid nineties, Peremba were one of the earliest to develop the area between Glenmarie and the Hyatt Saujana along old airport road. The area is still quite low density, considering it is mainly the domain of golf courses there. More recently, there have been quite a number of bungalow projects and also the very prestigious Serai Saujana, while across the road, Sime Darby Properties has been slowly developing their Ara Damansara township.

Malton will be launching a condo project right along the old airport road, quite near the interchange leading to Ara Damansara. With a sizable land made available to them, they are able to have an interestingly design condominium in this rather quiet neighbourhood.

Amaya Saujana is a three blocks of mid-rise condominiums in a sparse piece of land. Each block is almost similar with 10 storeys, the low density being a strong feature here, although we suspect the height restriction due to the proximity to the airport is also taken into account. At the moment they are launching two of the three blocks. All unit face north (towards the old airport road and Ara Damansara) or south towards the Saujana Resort. The southwards units at Block A are the most favorable, as they also face the pool and have also been the most popular.

Speaking of the pool, we were quite impressed by it, and with the facilities in general. About half the available land is used for landscaping and facilities, given it a lush garden feel. Generally the sports and recreation facilities provided here are better than the average, we feel this adds quite a bit to the attraction of the property.

Back to the units. The designers have taken the simple route – there are only two types of units, one at 1,569sq.ft and there’s also a larger 1,808sq.ft. Some blocks have penthouses. Each block has two symmetrical wings, totaling to 10 units per floor. Type A, the one at 1,569sq.ft, are the end units beside which face either east (very good) or west (not so good). The good thing is that these units are stand alone, in the sense that they don’t share any party wall with any other units. Type B (1,808sq.ft.) are corner units with a so-called ‘semi-D’ design.

Both types of units have 3+1 rooms, all rooms have attached baths. We like the large yard area.

Now we come to the price. Not cheap. Type A (1,569sq.ft.) sells from RM501k onwards (from RM319psf) while Type B (1,808sq.ft.) retails from RM605k upwards (from RM334k). If you are looking at a unit at mid height level, it will probably set you back in the region or RM700k to RM800k.

Well, let’s look at the things that we like first. The low density is obviously a plus factor, as with the location. We also like the landscaped design as mentioned earlier. On the flipside, the price is not accessible to most people, and they could have offered more types of layout design encompassing a larger range of build-up. With only two types of layout, they tend to be more conservative to reach a wider appeal.

At the moment, there are not many condos in this area, the more established ones are the older condo developed by Saujana.

Happy New Year and happy holidays, everyone!

Drive safely and enjoy yourselves.

Kiaraville has made good its promise to provide world-class sculpture in their development when they unveiled Eng Tay’s masterpiece recently.

New York-based Malaysian artist and sculptor Eng Tay gestured frantically as a crane hoisted each of his million Ringgit, half-ton bronze scupltures into position at the Kiaraville condomininium entrance in Kuala Lumpur.

After two hours of hoisting and manoeuvring in the afternoon sun, the two bronze musicians from Eng Tay’s Companion and Solo III series were finally in place at the Mont’ Kiara residential enclave.

Watching closely was Kiaraville developer and Ireka Corp Bhd group managing director Datuk Lai Siew Wah who applauded Eng Tay for successfully handing over the largest sculptures ever created by the artist.

A full write-up is found here.

This emphasis on the artistic element is part of the development team’s effort to set apart Kiaraville from the competition. The original review for Kiaraville (in August 2005) is found here.