GELANG PATAH: Forest City, the world’s first three-dimensional modern residential project, is globally recognised and has won several awards despite only three years in operations.
The project in Johor’s most southern tip recently won the Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Award (SCAHSA) for the second time, and the Global Model of Green Building Industrial Park award for its fabricated construction park.
The award, supported and guided by leading authorities, including the United Nations Environment Programme, demonstrates that the project’s exploratory efforts in creating and building a fully functioning, ecologically intelligent city on reclaimed land has received international recognition.
The US$100 billion (RM408 billion) international city, where the second link to Singapore is situated, is featured on four artificial islands (1,386ha), an area four times the size of New York’s Central Park.
Launched in 2014, the project is administered by Country Garden Pacificview Sdn Bhd (CGPV), a joint venture between Guangdong-based, Hong Kong-listed Country Garden Holdings Co Ltd, China’s third-largest homebuilder and Esplanade Danga 88 Sdn Bhd.
Forest City, Southeast Asia’s largest mixed-use green project, is the grandest real-estate development under way in Johor. Upon its completion in the next 20 to 30 years it will have office towers, apartments, hotels, shopping malls and international schools, all draped with greenery in a forest-like environment.
The development is expected to house about 700,000 people once completed.
CGPV executive director Datuk Md Othman Yusof told NST Property that China’s early involvement in Forest City has made it possible to attract global investors.
“A project of this scale, we need a very good kickstart. In less than three years, so much has taken place, here. We started reclaiming land in 2015 and have completed almost 11 per cent of the 1,386ha development today,” said Othman.
As a top integrated real estate developer in China, Country Garden has developed over 900 high-quality property projects worldwide, catering to more than three million owners.
Breaking new grounds
Othman said the development of Forest City is one of the most important projects in the world.
Since the start of this year the company has been focused on attracting diverse multinationals from the retail and hospitality sectors, including investors and property companies for the development of eight key industries in Forest City: education, e-commerce, foreign investment, tourism, MICE (meetings, incentives, conferencing and exhibitions), entrepreneurship and financial services, and retirement destination.
The company’s vision is to create a world city where communities come to live, work, and play.
Last month, CGPV unveiled a major component of its second phase of development — the RM1.8 billion posh and exquisite Forest City Golf Resort sprawling over a 809ha site.
The five-star golf resort comprises three interconnected golf courses, which will be flanked with luxurious villas that will have modern European design concepts, and a hotel.
When fully completed, the low-density residential enclave is expected to have only about 1,300 residents.
The landed properties are expected to be completed by October 2019 and comprise double-storey and three-storey cluster homes and semi-detached units with sizes ranging from 2,034 sq ft to 6,975 sq ft.
The properties, built near a natural water feature and which cuts across the golf course, are selling from RM1.38 million onwards.
Under the first phase of the villa development, CGPV will offer 202 units.
Another component of the golf resort development is the 305-room Forest City Golf Hotel. There will be two towers of hotel rooms, each 11-storey high, with a ballroom that can cater to 400 pax. The rooms range in size from 45 sq m to 323 sq m, and are priced from RM300++ to RM6,000++.
The hotel, which is targeting guests from Malaysia, China, Singapore and South Korea, among others, will be completed in the first half of next year while the first golf course, designed by the renowned Jack Nicklaus and his son Jack Nicklaus II, is slated for completion in the second half of the year.
Located next to the golf resort is the industrial building system (IBS) factory, the first for the Forest City development which started operations in August this year.
There will be six IBS factories in Forest City with an investment value of RM2.6 billion.
Othman said the IBS will incorporate technology from Germany, Italy and China and will be the biggest in the world when fully completed.
“Although it is slightly costlier, it is a much faster way of producing things. In the long run it will be cost-effective, especially when you build in bulk. When we look at the requirement historically, we have had a very good kick-start as we sold 17,000 apartment units in one year. Obviously we need to turn that into sales so we will need to build those properties in three years and IBS is the best method to get it done. We must build the properties within three years,” said Othman.
ATTRACTING BUYERS
Forest City aims to provide the most sought-after residences for international property buyers and affordable units to meet the expectations of the local population.
The first set of apartments in Forest City were launched in 2015.
From then until the end of December last year, 17,000 apartments have been launched and sold, with contracted sales of about US$2.9 billion. The units, with built-ups ranging from 500 square feet (sq ft) to about 6,000 sq ft (penthouses), were sold at an average price of RM1,200 per sq ft (psf) or starting from RM600,000 to RM7 million.
Othman said up to 75 per cent of the units were bought by buyers from China.
Malaysians and Singaporeans bought 10 per cent, or around 1,700 of the apartments. The remaining 15 per cent were purchased by investors from 20 countries with buyers mainly from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Middle East and Indonesia, he said.
“There were also buyers from Russia. We have a large number of Russians now looking to invest in Forest City after seeing what we have here today,” he said.
According to Othman, at least 50 per cent of the Chinese who bought the apartments in Forest City did it for investment while the rest bought for their own use.
“A lot of them bought to join the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme. We have more than 3,000 people from China who have registered for the MM2H.
“The older generation wants to come to Malaysia to retire,” said Othman.
The first batch of the 17,000 apartments will be handed over to buyers from the middle of next year while the remaining batches will be handed between the end of next year and 2020.
One of the key selling points for Forest City is the five-tier security system. This includes deploying hundreds of patrol guards at the coastline and auxiliary police personnel at the four man-made island, as well as installing CCTVs and smart locking system for the apartments.