Shangri-La says 50% of luxury apartments snapped up

Monday, 8 February 2016 00:52 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Charumini de Silva

Hong Kong-based leisure group Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts confirmed that One Galle Face Residences had reached 50% sales since its launch in May last year, a senior official said.

“The post launch response of investors and buyers has been excellent. Our sales gallery had very frequent visitors from all walks of life. In terms of our apartment sales, we have reached 50% and are also looking at more prospects coming in on a daily basis. The majority of the sales are from local investors, but there is also a good size of foreign buyers as well,” Shangri-La Deputy General Manager Rajiv Garg told the Daily FT.

One Galle Face, the upscale contemporary collaboration of Shangri La Hotel, Residences, Office and Retail project, will be completed by end 2018 with a total investment of $ 608 million.

“The project completion is divided into three phases. We are planning to open the hotel by the end of next year, followed by the next phase every six months and we hope the entire project would be completed by end 2018,” he noted.

Noting that there is steady pace of construction taking place currently, he added that right now their focus was on the apartment sales. The Residences at One Galle Face consists of twin tower 50-floors and are tailor-made for discerning investors with 406 residential units and 16 penthouses, offering eight duplex and eight simplex units.

The minimum price of a square foot is marked at $405, targeting foreign investors, expatriates and the expanding class of influential Sri Lankans.

In terms of the retail space, the firm had already started calling on suppliers from Colombo as well as from overseas.

Commenting on the Government support Garg said, “Shangri-La was one of the first foreign investors who walked into the country after the civil war and because of us there were many more significant investors came into the country. We have been one of the first goodwill ambassadors for the country and did very good in terms of bring in more FDIs to Sri Lanka. Therefore, I think the Government appreciates the gesture Shangri-La has provided to this country. Due to that whether the government changes or not does not matter. The Government as an institution has been very helpful and grateful.”

Elaborating on future investments in Sri Lanka he said that Shangri-La may be interested, but at this point of time their focus is very much on the Hambantota resort and Spa which is scheduled to be open in June or July this year.

“We must first see what kind of a response we get in the market for our first project in Hambantota. We have few leads, but we will make cautious decisions. We haven’t finalised anything,” he stated.