Sunday 28 June 2015

Summit 191 Penang


Summit 191 is an upcoming high-rise development by M Summit Group in the heart of the historic George Town, Penang. It is strategically located along Jalan Magazine, immediately opposite Komtar and adjacent to St. Giles Wembley Hotel.

Summit 191 comprises a 23-storey executive suites and the restoration of 5 units of 2-storey heritage shoplots. The key feature of this development is its automated robotic parking system that allows you to park your car with a peace of mind. This comes as a desperate move to find parking spaces in the fully established zones of George Town. It is obvious that the architect of thee project is forced to look for innovative ways in fulfilling the car park requirement imposed by the city council.

In this state-of-the-art automated parking system, you just drive into the central loading area and park your car. There is no need to drive up and down ramps, no parking skill is needed and you don’t even have to remember your car parking lots! You just leave your car there and go on with your day's activities in a peace of mind.

Thursday 18 June 2015

DoubleTree Resort by Hilton Penang


Penang will soon have its first Hilton branded resort following an official announcement of the initiation of DoubleTree Resort by Hilton Penang. The hotel’s grand opening is targeted to be in early 2016. 

Located in the tourist belt of Batu Feringghi, DoubleTree Resort by Hilton Penang will house 318 rooms, mostly with prominent sea-views. Among the hotel’s unique features include a kid’s zone and water-park, a sand lounge with an artificial beach, as well as family-friendly dual key rooms with a common foyer for the perfect family getaway. The hotel is also equipped with function rooms, meeting spaces, all day dining as well as a spa to relax and unwind for the discerning business travelers. 

The primary attractions of the hotel will have to be the introduction of Malaysia’s first teddy bear themed museum and gallery called TeddyVille, which will be located within the hotel itself and is set to be a new crowd puller for Penang. The museum will feature the rich history of Malaysia told in a fun way through the adorable teddy bears.

Sunday 14 June 2015

Will The Next Tallest Building In The World Be Built In China?

Billionaire Zhang Yue grabbed international headlines with his ambitious plan to build the world’s tallest building from pre-fabricated units.

But when his 9-billion yuan (HK$11.5 billion) vision for the 838-metre tall Sky City in Changsha in Hunan province stalled in 2013 amid concerns from regulators, Zhang began to fade from view.

Now he is back in the spotlight following the recent construction of a building dubbed Small Sky City, more than 200 metres tall, in an eyebrow-raising 19 days.

Questioned by reporters at the Boao Forum for Asia last month, Zhang, 55, insisted the ‘big’ Sky City was not a lost cause, despite the local government’s suspension of the project amid controversy over its safety, environmental impact and source of funding.

“[Construction] shouldn’t be far away. We’ll start soon and complete soon,” said Zhang, who is estimated by the Hurun Global Rich List to share a personal fortune of 7.9 billion yuan (HK$11.5 billion) with his wife.

As the president of Broad Group, a company that began life building air conditioners, Zhang was once considered one of the leading entrepreneurs in mainland China. And even now, despite the problems surrounding the would-be world’s tallest building, the keen environmentalist has a style of talking big.

He said the high-profile, energy-saving project had received “too much attention, which scared the officials”, as he explained why at present the project was little more than a big hole in a village in suburban Changsha, where his company is based.

Plans for the building are nothing if not eye-catching.

Not only would it be 10 metres higher than the world’s current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, it would host everything from apartments, offices and restaurants, to supermarket stores and even schools so that its residents could live, work and play in its confines without the need to battle – or add to – the pollution outside.

At the Boao Forum Zhang demonstrated an air-quality reading machine and passed out business cards that were an environmentally-friendly half-size, as he urged businesspeople and officials to change to greener lifestyles.

Sky City dwarfs the surrounding tall buildings.

Zhang claims to have embraced such change himself.

While in 1997 he became the mainland’s first private business owner to have a private jet, Zhang ditched both his personal planes in 2008 and now drives only Smart and electric cars.

He says he made the decision after finding that a flight from Changsha to Beijing emitted eight tonnes of carbon dioxide. It would take eight trees 60 years to absorb such an amount, he said.

“When the plane took off, I would look out of the window and think [about] the trees,” he said.

However, media reports covering the ground-breaking ceremony of Sky City in July 2013 showed Zhang arriving at the site in a US-made Bell Helicopter.

He co-founded Broad in 1992 with his brother Zhang Jian. The company specialises in four areas: air conditioners, air purifiers, sustainable buildings, and combined cooling, heating and power units. Air conditioners are the company’s biggest source of profit so far.

An article posted on Broad’s website in 2011 was ridiculed for boasting that Beijing’s Zhongnanhai, the central government compound in the centre of the city, had started using its air purifiers and ventilation systems.

This was mocked by internet users who commented that even the air in China’s centre of power was now specially supplied.

Zhang now takes a low-key approach, telling the South China Morning Post: “We have millions of customers and Zhongnanhai is one of the smallest ones.”

Zhang places his greatest hopes for his future business on prefab buildings, which can be constructed speedily block by block using steel modules built off site.

So far, the market appears unconvinced. Broad has six franchises and most of the more than 30 buildings it has constructed were for its own use. Only five or six were built for commercial orders, Zhang said.

“I don’t like making things showy. I’m not willing to build houses according to others’ will. I like them to be upright and foursquare,” he explained. “So there’s often disagreement [with potential clients].”

Modular construction is popular in China and the rest of the world, but Broad was different because of its unusually high-level of factory production, he said.
“About 90 per cent of our payroll goes to workers in factories. Usually it’s 20 to 30 per cent, like in the US and Japan.”

Zhang was reported to have proposed co-operation with Feng Lun, chairman of the leading real estate developer Vantone, who had been promoting a similar venture named GREAT (Green, Relational, Economical, All-Encompassing, Technology) City, but no deal could be made.

“Zhang Yue hails from Hunan. Hunan people won’t stop until they make things extreme,” Feng was quoted as saying by the China Economic Weekly.

“I believe [Sky City] can be handled in terms of technology, but I don’t think the conditions are mature enough regarding economic and social management,” said Feng.

Zhang graduated from a teaching school in Chenzhou in Hunan, before starting work as an art teacher in his hometown more than three decades ago.

He quit the job in 1984 and dabbled in various businesses including selling camera films and motorbikes, decorating, and even ran a café.

In 1992, he and his brother Zhang Jian started making non-electric air conditioners in Changsha. At a time when electricity was in acute shortage the business boomed.

However, the brothers split in the late 1990s as Zhang Jian proposed to diversify the company’s business by merging with Japan’s Mitsubishi, something that crossed Zhang Yue’s principle of “no diversification, no debt and no public listing”.

This prompted Zhang Jian to start his own company, Broad Homes, which has grown into a leading player in precast concrete construction. Years later, Zhang Yue broke his own principle by introducing franchising for his company, Broad Group.

Broad Group’s earnings are unclear. Its spokeswoman Zhu Linfang said that as it was not a public-listed company it was not obliged to disclose the information.

But Zhang has been quoted as saying that the company made about 6 billion yuan in 2012, of which more than 2 billion yuan came from air conditioners.
Most might be happy with such an amount, but it is small change when compared to a city in the sky and a 9-billion yuan dream.

Saturday 13 June 2015

Bangkok's Super Tower


Higher than a bird, almost as high as some planes. It's Super Tower. And it's coming to Bangkok.

A Thai property developer has announced plans to build a skyscraper in the Thai capital that will be among the 10 tallest buildings in the world when it is completed in 2019.

The 125-storey tower will rise 615 metres and include a luxury six-star hotel with 260 rooms, offices and an observation deck with panoramic views of the Thai capital and rooftop garden, developer Grand Canal Land Public Company said.


According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which maintains a database of the tallest skyscrapers, the Bangkok "Super Tower" will be the world's ninth tallest if it is built on schedule. It would be the second tallest if built today.

The tower will dwarf the tallest building currently in Thailand, the Baiyoke II tower, which tops out at 328 metres on its 85th storeys.

The tallest building in the world is currently Dubai's Burj Khalifa, which has 163 floors and is 828 metres high. The Petronas twin towers in Kuala Lumpur, the tallest building in Southeast Asia, stand at 452 metres. The tallest building in Hong Kong, the International Commerce Centre, is 484 metres tall.

The Thai developer intends the tower as the centre of a new business, shopping and residential district in Bangkok costing 100 billion baht (HK$24 billion). It will be built on almost 12 hectares of land in the city. A competition will be held to decide the name.

"This skyscraper is going to be the new landmark of Thailand, a world-class attraction that everyone must visit at least once in his or her lifetime," Grand Canal Land chairman Yotin Boondicharern said.

The ambitious plans are a vote of confidence in the Thai economy, which has struggled to grow during several years of political strife.

The military seized power from the elected government on May 22, the 12th coup in Thailand since the end of its absolute monarchy in 1932. Martial law remains in place but business and daily life continues as normal.

Friday 12 June 2015

The Rise Of Asia


A record-breaking 53 skyscrapers over 200 metres high were completed in Asia in 2013, accounting for three-quarters of the year's tallest new buildings, according to the latest industry report.

The annual review from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat reveals that 74 percent of worldwide skyscraper completions in 2013 were in Asian countries - a 19 percent increase on 2012 - and that the region now contains 45 percent of the tallest buildings in the world.

China accounts for the majority of this total, with 37 skyscrapers of over 200 metres spread across 22 different cities, including the lesser-known locations of Hefei and Xiamen that before this year had never contained buildings of this scale.

South Korea also plays a large role in the statistics with nine 200-metre-plus buildings completed in the last year, eight of which are located within a single complex in the growing city of Goyang.

The overall findings of the report were that worldwide skyscraper construction is back on the rise, in spite of a stall in 2012 that saw the total number of tall buildings fail to increase for the first time in six years, and that 2013 was the second-most successful year ever for skyscraper construction with a total of 73 buildings over 200 metres.

"By all appearances, the small increase in the total number of tall-building completions from 2012 into 2013 is indicative of a return to the prevalent trend of increasing completions each year over the past decade," it reads.

"From 2000 to 2013, the total number of 200-metre-plus buildings in existence increased from 261 to 830 - an astounding 318 percent. From this point of view, we can more confidently estimate that the slight slowdown of 2012 - which recorded 69 completions after 2011's record 81 - was a 'blip', and that 2013 was more representative of the general upward trend."

The tallest building of the year was the 355-metre JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai Tower 2 completed in Dubai, the city that now also houses the world's tallest twisted skyscraper, the 307-metre Cayan Tower.

Only one of the 73 buildings over 200 metres was located in north America, while four were in Europe, including Renzo Piano's The Shard in London and the Mercury City tower in Moscow. None were recorded in Australia, Canada or Saudi Arabia, although construction did begin on the proposed 1000-metre Kingdom Tower in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.

Source: Dezeen


Titijaya's RM2.6 Billion Project In Penang


SHAH ALAM (May 27): Titijaya Land Bhd obtained shareholders’ approval to acquire about 23 acres of leasehold land in Batu Maung, Penang to build a mixed-use development after its extraordinary general meeting (EGM) here today. The land is located within 1.5km from the Sultan Abdul Halim Mua’dzam Shah Bridge (the Second Penang Bridge). 

The mixed-use development will be built by Titijaya Land’s wholly-owned subsidiary, City Meridian Development Sdn Bhd and is the group’s first development outside of the Klang Valley.

“The property market in Penang is highly competitive, but we believe that the demand for residential and commercial properties in Penang is expected to remain favourable among local and foreign buyers,” deputy group managing director Lim Poh Yit (pictured, right) told reporters after the EGM. 

The land acquisition will be satisfied via a cash consideration of RM126 million in bank borrowings and internal funds.

The newly acquired landbank will be used to develop a proposed mixed-use development with a gross development value (GDV) of about RM2.6 billion. The proposed development, which is yet to be named, will offer about 1,700 small office, home office units across four blocks, retail components and four office towers.

According to GDP Architects Sdn Bhd's associated partner Hairul Afzahizan Osmayati (pictured, below), the development will be built in three phases.

“We phased out the developments into three [phases]. The first phase will have two residential blocks with retail and shops; Phase 2 will be the remaining retail and two residential blocks. The last phase will be [all four] office [towers],” said Hairul. GDP Architects is the appointed master architect for the whole project.

Lim said: “We plan to launch Phase 1 this year. It will be either year-end or early next year, which is our launching schedule.” He added that the first phase will have an estimated GDV of RM600 million.

Lim is aiming to obtain approval from the authorities to develop the project by early next year.
After the land acquisition, Titijaya Land has 432.47 acres of landbank throughout Malaysia.
“We believe that this acquisition will expand our development activities in the future, which will contribute positively to the group’s future financial performance,” Lim added.