Property Malaysia

Recently we’ve been exploring some new office suites around PJ area, and there seem to be many new ones. They range from the large scale ones with huge visibility (like PJ8 and PJX along the Federal Highway) and some medium and small scale ones sprouting in between existing development (3 Two Square). Maybe its a good sign that the office space market is beginning to pick up, but then again no one can tell if a year from now there will an over supply or a shortage. But even in the best of times, very few office buildings can boast of near full capacity at optimum rental rates, unless you are located in some red hot prime area like the Golden Triangle in KLCC. Outside of the city centre, expectations have to be more realistic. Move further out to the suburbs, where there is a mixed development of residential and commercial (and in most cases in PJ, even industrial), even more so.

So in these areas, developers tend to build small. Some diversify into retail / F & B outlets on the first and mezzanine floors to add vibrancy at night. Recently some developers have started to offer clubhouse like facilities for the benefit of the tenants and their clients. Some office suites are marketed as SOHO units to attract the younger crowd.

So here we have PJ5, in Kelana Jaya one of the more established of PJ’s residential areas. It is located on a very quiet stretch of road that has a few schools and surrounded by landed homes and low key double storey shoplots which have been here for more than 3 decades. And now we have a 10 storey office building with 138 suites. The plot of land is on an idle site that was earmarked for an earlier developed but did not take off. The developer then acquired this plot, which is slightly under an acre for this project. While it is marketed as a SOHO, its basically an office unit, but they have included serviced apartment-style facilities for the tenants. The suites can be made into a SOHO with proper ID works, but that really can be said for most office units in Malaysia.

The full glass facade building looks contemporary, the ground and mezzanine floor are reserved for retail units for rental only. The office suites start from first floor above, and there are 138 units.

The units are arranged all around a lift lobby, so you have a choice of which direction your office faces. Unit sizes range from a small of from 350 sq.ft to 915 sq.ft. so bigger offices are expected to take up at an entire floor. At the moment the prices are at from RM136,900 to RM583,900 which is from RM390 to 450psf, indicatively. As for the facilities they have rooftop swimming pool, landscaped garden, and other facilities for serviced apartments like sauna, gym multi-purpose hall, and security services. At the moment the developers are packaging in freebies for early bird purchasers.

The developer has completed a few small projects, mostly in the Bandar Utama area like Casa Utama, Eastwood Terrace, Villa Dahlia and Beverly Residence.