Amid changing political dynamics in South-East Asia, these colonial-era buildings have become some of the world’s most expensive properties, home to Michelin stars and chichi retailers — and a target for money launderers Some of the best examples of Straits Eclectic architecture are found on Koon Seng Road Singapore’s shophouses
Singaporean heritage shophouses are enjoying roof-raising demand. Private equity giant Ray Dalio’s family office has bought in. The wife of Alibaba founder Jack Ma has acquired several. The infamous Fujian Gang of money launderers from China and their alleged associates bought a whole portfolio.
Comparable to brownstones in New York’s Brooklyn or properties in London’s Soho, the Singaporean colonial buildings have been fetching record prices as they get snapped up by family offices, billionaires and local developers.
Located on prime land, exempt from the hefty taxes foreign buyers must pay to buy residential property and with a finite supply of roughly 6,700, commercial shophouse sales surged to an all-time high of S$1.9bn ($1.41bn) in 2021, according to data from Knight Frank, with the trend continuing in 2022.
And while sales by volume dropped in 2023, they remained above pre-pandemic levels. So do prices. Shophouses in the city centre have been selling for S$5,000-S$6,000 per sq ft — in some cases as much as S$8,000, say estate agents. That is comparable to recent deals by Prada or Gucci’s parent company Kering on New York’s Fifth Avenue — among the world’s most expensive retail spaces.
The new owners want top tenants. Coach, Dior, boutique hotels and Michelin star restaurants are opening inside shophouses. Ann Siang Hill, Chinatown, an area of elegantly restored shophouses transformed into restaurants and art galleries Then, last August, Singapore police unveiled a S$3bn money-laundering investigation — the city-state’s largest ever — involving individuals suspected of links to illicit online gambling from mainland China. Along with gold bars, luxury cars and handbags, the so-called Fujian Gang and their associates had also bought shophouses with the allegedly laundered funds.
The buildings started life as the homes of merchants and their families in the 1840s. The archetypal shophouse had the shop premises on the ground floor while the family often occupied the rear of the building and the rooms on the floors above. They were built with front verandas contiguous with their neighbours. In a city prone to sudden tropical thunderstorms and harsh sun, this created a continuous covered walkway along which to stroll. They were still being built until as late as the 1960s.
When Singapore gained independence from Malaysia in 1965, shophouses were on the way out. Entire streets of them were demolished to make way for glittering new office blocks and shopping centres. It was only in the 1980s that the government had a shift in attitude towards old buildings, culminating in the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Conservation Master Plan of 1989. This involved gazetting city centre neighbourhoods — including Chinatown — as historic and conservation areas.
It is only in the past decade or so that shophouses have become hot property. Local developers such as 8M Real Estate, Clifton Partners and others started buying commercial shophouses to reinvent them into boutique hotels and jazzy bars and restaurants. Their upper storeys became especially popular as a more unique office space option than the usual skyscrapers.
