Executive Centre Opens Two Locations Singland Tower And Ioi Central Boulevard Year
The Executive Centre (TEC) has recently opened its eighth co-working location in Singapore, located at the newly refurbished Singapore Land Tower in Raffles Place. Covering five floors with a total of 49,354 sq ft in the 47-storey office building, this is TEC’s largest flexible workspace to date.
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The Grade-A office development is owned by Singapore Land, a subsidiary of mainboard listed UOL Group. The $160 million makeover of the 45-year-old building began in 2021.
For the first time, TEC has entered a management contract with a landlord in Singapore to oversee non-TEC branded spaces. At Singapore Land Tower, TEC operates the event and function areas on the fourth floor, as well as office spaces on the fifth floor.
The fourth floor features a new 250-person function room, an outdoor al fresco space, as well as a 20-person boardroom. These spaces are set to open in August after ongoing renovation works. The fifth floor, which opened in October 2023, currently offers about 100 co-working seats and several private office suites. These spaces were used to accommodate tenants of Singapore Land Tower during the three-year long refurbishment.
According to Yvonne Lim, managing director for Southeast Asia at TEC, about 70% of the co-working portion and 65% of the private offices on the fifth floor are currently occupied. She attributes the slightly lower occupancy rate to ongoing fabrication works on the fourth floor, which creates noise disruptions for the office spaces.
This is the first time TEC has managed spaces on behalf of a landlord in Singapore. The company plans to continue operating the office floor as a swing space while also managing events on the fourth floor. Typically, TEC has adopted a more traditional direct leasing business model in Singapore.
TEC currently has two other management agreements in Southeast Asia, both in Jakarta, Indonesia. One is a 20,468 sq ft office space at Jakarta Mori Tower, and the other is a 17,298 sq ft office space at Pacific Century Place.
According to Chelsea Perino, managing director of global marketing and communications at TEC, the company is keen to pursue more of these management contracts and partnerships with landlords. This allows for a more comprehensive involvement between the landlord and TEC, leading to more opportunities for both parties in terms of event collaboration and market positioning.
The mainstay of TEC at Singapore Land Tower are its premium workspaces on the 45th to 47th floors, which have enjoyed 90% occupancy since they opened in January last year. Lim shares that the company had shortlisted Singapore Land Tower as an option for its expansion strategy in Singapore due to the building’s prime Grade-A location. However, it was only after the extensive refurbishment was announced by the landlord that TEC reached out to express its interest in being a tenant and space provider.
Lim describes this as an “ideal partnership”, as Singapore Land was looking for a workspace operator to introduce premium flexible workspaces and manage the planned meeting and event space on the fourth floor.
The new location has attracted a mix of mostly technology companies, financial institutions and professional services firms, thanks to its prime location in Raffles Place. Lim notes that different submarkets within the CBD tend to attract different client profiles and demographics. For example, a good proportion of TEC’s clientele at its location in Ocean Financial Centre are in the legal profession.
TEC also manages four office floors, spanning 85,527 sq ft, at Ocean Financial Centre on the fourth, 22nd, 37th, and 40th floors. The co-working space on the 22nd floor is a new addition, and tenants started moving in on March 3.
Despite ongoing economic headwinds, the Grade-A office leasing market in Singapore remains steady, says Lim. TEC’s average occupancy rate of about 95% across its eight properties in Singapore, excluding the recently opened 22nd floor at Ocean Financial Centre, is a testament to this.