New in Raffles Place

Source : Straits Times - 25 Apr 2009

28-storey Straits Trading Building has unusual trapezoidal shape

When the flagship building of the Straits Trading Company is completed in November, it will be the only new office building in Raffles Place this year.

The 28-storey Straits Trading Building at 9 Battery Road will have an eye-catching faceted blue glass facade.

‘The building will resemble a crystal in the city,’ says Madam Wong Meng Heng, director of Team Design Architects, the firm behind the building. The first Straits Trading Building was built in 1972 and was torn down in 2007 to make way for this new $60-million building.

Besides its faceted blue facade, the building’s other highlights include two covered sky terraces on its 13th and 21st floors.

The two-storey terraces, which will be accessible only to tenants, will have lush greenery, built-in water features, wi-fi connectivity as well as a glass meeting room on the 21st floor.

Mr Eric Teng, Straits Trading Company’s executive vice-president of property, says: ‘The sky terraces add value for tenants and give personality to the building.’

Of course, the building will also offer views of the Marina Bay area and Raffles Place. Rather than conforming to a conventional box-like structure, Madam Wong explains, the building has a trapezoidal shape to maximise the views.

Every floor will offer tenants about 8,000 sq ft of column-free space. Each floor can take up to two tenants and the space will be rented out for about $10 to $12 psf a month.

The core business of the 122-year-old Singapore-based Straits Trading Company is tin mining. It also owns Hotel Rendezvous and is the developer of Gallop Gables condominium. It is likely to occupy the top three floors of the new building.

Mr Teng says that about one-third of its tenants are confirmed. They are mostly service offices and law firms.

He is confident that all units will be occupied by November. ‘Each tenant in the building can even have the whole floor to itself, which is a desirable factor,’ he says.