While the majority of new launches are in the suburban areas, there are also a number of upcoming new developments in the KLCC vicinity, including projects such as KL Trillion Serviced Apartments and Verve Suites @ KLCC among others.
The Mont’Kiara vicinity is also seeing an increase in new launches, with projects such as Pavilion Hilltop, Residensi 22 @ Mont’Kiara, Sun Kiara Condominium, Kiara 163 Serviced Residence, Weida Mont’Kiara and others to be launched in the near future.
During the review period, there were two new completions in Mont’Kiara – Kiaramas Danai (287 units) and 28 Mont’Kiara (460 units).
Knight Frank says the office market is expected to remain challenging as supply continues to outstrip demand.
In KL city, demand for good grade dual-compliant office space is expected to remain resilient in the short term. Owners of old and dated office buildings are proactively seeking to upgrade and enhance their assets in a bid to remain competitive and retain tenants (and to attract new ones) amid a challenging leasing market.
The decentralised office location of KL Sentral, however, is expected to face further pressure on its occupancy and rental rates due to the recent completion of some 1.9 million sq ft and impending completion of some 1.7 million sq ft by year-end.
The short-term threat from these completions may, however, be mitigated as several buildings have secured anchor tenants.
Knight Frank says the impending opening of Nu Sentral later this year is expected to improve integration between the various completed components within KL Sentral and add further appeal to the transportation hub as a popular alternative office location, thus leading to improved demand and absorption rates in the medium to longer term.
With rapid developments of public transportation links (LRT extension and MRT lines), accessibility and connectivity between KL City and its fringe locations will be greatly enhanced. Coupled with the availability of good grade office space at competitive rental rates, this will accelerate the decentralisation process.
CBRE says some 6.27 million sq ft of new office space will be completed in the Greater KL region next year, although a considerable amount of this supply is located in strata-title or secondary buildings. Nevertheless, the market is set to remain poised in favour of tenants for the near future.
The KL city that constitutes the capital city’s golden triangle and central business district’s office market showed encouraging signs of life during the review quarter as vacancy rates fell to 12.7% (13.2% as at 1Q), on the back of some notable leasing activities.
Continued evidence of the ongoing flight to quality came in the form of an oil and gas major leasing over 200,000 sq ft of office space in Integra Tower, the recently completed prime office building within MGPA’s Intermark integrated development.
Overall, there was no change in average gross asking and passing rents for selected Grade A office space in the city, at RM8.10 psf and RM7.10 psf respectively.
As at the second quarter this year, the total supply of office space in Greater KL stood at about 91.1 million sq ft, 5% higher than the 89.2 million sq ft and up 5% year-on-year.
The second quarter of 2013 witnessed the completion of four developments, all located outside Kuala Lumpur city – Menara D’Damansara (253,000 sq ft of net lettable area), Plaza33 (530,840 sq ft), and Menara CIMB (609,000 sq ft) as well as Menara Shell (538,617 sq ft) located in KL Sentral.
