Sengkang Central Concept and Price GLS site sees healthy competition

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) announced today that it has closed the tender for the commercial and residential site at Sengkang Central. The site was launched for sale via the Concept and Price (C&P) revenue tender system on 28 December 2017. Under this system, only the envelopes containing concept proposals were opened today and URA received a total of 7 tender submissions.

URA said that it has received 7 bids for the Sengkang central site from tenderers like Cressida 1 Pte. Ltd. and Callisto 5 Pte. Ltd, Laguna Garden Limited and Far East Commercial Trustee Pte. Ltd. (in its capacity as Trustee-Manager of Far East Commercial Trust), and MCC Land (Singapore) Pte Ltd and Grantral Buangkok Properties Pte Ltd.

Tenderers for the subject site at Sengkang Central were required to submit their concept proposals and tender prices in two separate envelopes. The concept proposals will be first evaluated by a Concept Evaluation Committee based on a set of criteria specified in the tender.

The seven tender submissions received for the government land sales site (GLS) in Sengkang Central is encouraging considering technical evaluation criteria attached to it.

Besides bidding for price, the tenderers had to define innovative construction solutions for the site. To elicit innovative construction solutions, a Concept and Price revenue tender approach was adopted.

Only tenders that meet the evaluation criteria will be considered for award. At the second stage, the price envelopes of the proposals with acceptable concepts will be opened for consideration. The site will then be awarded to the tenderer with the highest bid price among those with acceptable concept proposals.

In early May, a C&P GLS site at Hillview Rise off Upper Bukit Timah attracted nine tender submissions from eight bidders. The site has a land area of 14,269.1 sqm with a maximum permissible Gross Floor Area (GFA) of 40,030 square metre (sqm). The Concept Evaluation Committee will shortlist proposals that demonstrate comparable or higher construction productivity outcomes than those that are achieved by the most advanced method of Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA) technologies adopted for sites sold under the GLS programme.

There was similar strong interest for another C&P GLS site in Holland Village. The tender which closed in March this year saw 15 concept submissions being made by 10 tenderers.

The interest levels in these sites is positive considering the bidding parties have to compete for the sites with the fairly technical evaluation criteria under which construction productivity plan takes up 75 per cent of the evaluation weightage.

This criterion takes into account the overall construction productivity concept and level of prefabrication and integration across architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing works. The construction background and experience of many of the tenderers explains their interest in the tender notwithstanding a more protracted bidding process.

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The tenderer/developer and project teams for the Sengkang Central site will be assessed based on their relevant skills and/or experience in employing advanced construction technologies for residential developments, with proven track records (which may include productivity, quality and safety) both locally and overseas. Tenderers/developer and project teams with only overseas projects will have to substantiate their track records with relevant international construction awards or accolades.

Located in the heart of Buangkok neighbourhood, the mixed-use Sengkang Central site was envisioned as an integrated community hub to meet the needs of some 20,000 residents in Buangkok, with amenities such as a hawker centre, community club, childcare centre, retail shops, as well as public rail and bus transport facilities sited in a one-stop location.

The development is also a focal point and identity marker for the Buangkok neighbourhood. Hence, thoughtfully designed public spaces which are well integrated with transport and community uses will be key to the success of the development.

The Sengkang Central site is part of the Government’s Construction Industry Transformation Map (CITP). CITP will require the successful bidder to developed the site in close partnership with industry, trade associations and chambers (TACs), institutes of higher learning (IHLs), unions and government. The CITP aims to achieve a future-ready built environment with smart, green and high quality buildings.

The CITP has identified 3 key areas to develop the construction sector. The first key area is identified as “Design for Manufacturing & Assembly” (DfMA). DfMA requires builders to design upfront for ease of manufacturing and assembly. It further requires them to highly automate offsite facilities and have efficient, clean on-site process.

The second key area will focus on Green Buildings where developers will have to design for Green Buildings and adopt sustainable practices in operations and maintenance. The third key area of Integrated Digital Delivery (IDD) will fully integrate processes and stakeholders along the value chain through advanced info-communications technology and smart technologies. IDD will be enabled by Building Information Modelling.

URA hopes that CITP will establish robust DfMA ecosystem to make DfMA price competitive to enable widespread adoption. It also hopes to develop IDD shared platforms and standards to support the adoption of IDD solutions. URA envisions CITP to develop strong and capable firms, while encouraging greater collaboration among firms.

Tenders for the Sengkang Central site will be evaluated based on concept proposal and tendered sale price in a 3-stage process. At the first stage, the bids will be evaluated by the Concept Evaluation Committee (CEC) – which will be chaired by the Building and Construction Authority. The CEC will first evaluate the Concept Proposals and only Concept Proposals that substantially satisfy the evaluation criteria will be shortlisted for the 2nd stage of evaluation under the Tender Evaluation Committee (TEC).

The TEC will open the price envelopes of shortlisted tenders. Tender with the highest tendered sale price will be considered for award. After tender award and at the 3rd stage, the concept proposal will still be required to be reviewed by a Construction Productivity Advisory Panel.

URA said that other local DfMA construction projects were completed with a time saving of between 2 – 6 months, and manpower savings of between 17 – 44 per cent.

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