This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 14, 2022 - November 20, 2022

Winner | Sunway City Kuala Lumpur | Sunway Bhd

Witnessing firsthand the negative socioeconomic impacts of tin-mining activities on the land when he was growing up in Pusing, Perak, Sunway Group founder and chairman Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah felt deeply that sustainable developments are vital for the future. This determination motivated him to develop what has become Sunway City Kuala Lumpur today.

Sunway Bhd property division managing director Sarena Cheah, who is also the daughter of Cheah, says: “The miners had left nothing but wasteland, depriving the community of any economic activity or arable land. This formed his conviction that development that considers the future of people and planet was vital for our future even before the concept of sustainable development gained popularity.”

When Cheah bought the 325ha of tin-mining wasteland previously known as Sungai Way in the 1970s, he knew what he wanted to do with the land: build an integrated, green and smart sustainable city that could be a model for the region. That vision was the birth of Sunway City KL a place where everyone can live, learn, work and play in a healthy and safe environment. The development was envisioned as a catalyst for growth in the area,  not only to bring families together and drive footfall to the location, but also to create jobs and opportunities for the communities.

Sunway City KL is the winner of The Edge Malaysia Property Development Excellence Award for Excellence in Integrated Township of Residential, Resort, Office and Retail this year. This award recognises large-scale property developments that have made a significant impact as successful developments. The project has proven to be a catalyst for growth while continuing to contribute positively to the vibrancy of the area it is located in.

Sunway was first incorporated as a private limited company known as Sungei Way Holdings. From a tin mining and quarrying company, it has grown into a conglomerate with 13 business segments. Over the years, it underwent several name changes before its owners settled on Sunway, with Sunway City KL being its crown jewel. Sunway Lagoon Theme Park, one of the earliest developments there, was designed after an extensive study of the world’s attractions and launched in 1992.

Sarena notes that, compared to the initial master plan, the current Sunway City KL has evolved substantially alongside the community. The initial master plan included its headquarters Menara Sunway (completed in 1993), Sunway College (now known as Sunway University, completed in 1993), Sunway Resort Hotel (completed in 1997), Sunway Pyramid (completed in 1997) and Sunway Medical Centre (completed in 1998).

“Over the years, we expanded the master plan as the demand for liveability continued to grow, leveraging our build-own-operate business model and co-investor philosophy that promises lifelong growth for our communities. This included the development of Sunway South Quay in the early 2000s. As the years went by, we undertook many asset enhancement initiatives for our existing assets and added in new developments such as The Pinnacle Sunway and the Sunway GEO integrated development. Moving forward, there will be the completion of the expansion to the Sunway Medical Centre hospital and Sunway Sanctuary, a senior living facility that caters to the rise of senior citizens in Malaysia and continuously retrofits our developments to meet environmental and social needs,” she said.

At the point of acquisition of the land, Cheah had also built Sunway’s quarry and construction businesses to ensure that there was a strong team that could manage the lifelong progress of the township. He then worked to revive the barren land, where the development team had to first migrate earthworms into the wasteland to make it arable again. He strongly believed that urban forestry was needed to ensure that the entire township would be liveable.

Subsequently, he worked with Persatuan Akitek Malaysia to conceptualise the township by holding a master plan competition. Once the winning plan was selected, feasibility studies were conducted and the construction work began. There were steep crater slopes that the engineers and builders had to navigate around and deal with by building slope reinforcements.

Sarena explains that Cheah had to simultaneously secure funding for the development despite many financial institutions being incredulous at it, as turning a mining wasteland into a development was something deemed an impossible dream then. Eventually, with the support of friends as well as the completion of the first two components — Sunway Lagoon Theme Park and Sunway College — the necessary funding was secured.

“In many ways, Sunway City KL has grown beyond the master plan following demographic shifts, technological advancements and socio-economic needs. Besides being a model smart sustainable city, we now have top-notch research, education and healthcare facilities. As we fervently believe that a township should evolve alongside its community, we will continue to evolve it to yield lifelong growth for our community,” she continues.

“We were overjoyed when Sunway City KL became the first to be certified as Malaysia’s first sustainable township by Green Building Index Malaysia in 2012, close to 40 years after it was first conceptualised, and subsequently became the first township to be awarded the Low Carbon City Award in 2016 by the Malaysian Institute of Planners. Sunway City KL has also been accorded Diamond status as a low-carbon city through the Subang Jaya City Council at the 2021 Low Carbon City Awards.”

She adds that these awards are a testament that Sunway is on the right track in terms of its sustainability efforts, which it has recently taken a step further by announcing its pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Sunway City KL now serves a community of more than 200,000 people living, working, playing, and studying in a safe, healthy and connected environment. Almost 50% of Sunway City KL is open space and 24% of the city is green space. Some 30,000 trees and palms have been transplanted to serve as green lungs in Sunway City KL. It also has more than 150 species of flora and fauna.

For accessibility, the township has the BRT-Sunway Line, which is Malaysia’s first dedicated and elevated electric Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system and the first public-private partnership between Prasarana Malaysia Bhd and Sunway. It is also connected by covered elevated walkways.

“We are also proud to be home to the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development at Sunway University which was established in 2016, and the Asia headquarters of the UN-SDSN (United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network). Our latest initiative here is the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, led by Tan Sri Dr Jemilah Mahmood, who was special advisor on public health to former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin. The new centre is working closely with our existing institutions at Sunway University to advance the sustainability agenda in this region,” she says.

Sunway has also installed other technologies within the township, including permeable pavers to prevent floods, renewable energy in the form of solar panels, its own state-of-the-art water treatment plant that recycles and purifies water from its two sunken former mining lakes in Sunway South Quay and Sunway Lagoon to serve the community, ensuring that they have an uninterrupted water supply, the BRT-Sunway Line and an urban farming innovation hub.

Sarena believes that the key factors that contribute to the property price appreciation in Sunway City Kuala Lumpur are infrastructure development, commercial properties and amenities, the neighbourhood, policy changes and the macro-economic situation.

“As the master community developer with a build-own-operate business model, we can manage three of these five factors. As an example, in Sunway City KL, we are able to improve infrastructure by building the BRT-Sunway Line, monitor the performance of each of our assets within the township and upgrade them according to shifting trends, such as the recent transformation of the Sunway Resort Hotel. Today, Sunway City KL houses thriving commercial properties including Sunway Pyramid Mall, Sunway University and Sunway Medical Centre which are now leading establishments in their respective industries.”

As a result, the first residential properties there that were sold for less than RM100,000 have now appreciated to more than RM1 million. Sunway GEO Lake, which was completed in 2021, has seen an average appreciation rate of 16% and a rental yield of 5.7%. Sunway GEO Avenue’s Flexi Suite, which was completed in 2018, has seen an average appreciation rate of 25% and a rental yield of 4%.

The group’s vision for Sunway City KL is for it to be a model smart sustainable city where urban innovations are started and propagated to face the challenges of urbanisation and to drive the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. For the township to continue to grow, Sarena believes that continuous innovation is the key factor. “With innovation, we will be able to exponentially magnify our work towards driving the 2030 Agenda and delivering better ways for people to live, learn, work and play in environments that are healthy and safe.”

The Sunway South Quay Square and Sunway Sanctuary that Sunway is currently developing are among the examples of innovation. The RM2 billion Sunway South Quay Square development comprises 23- and 21-storey office blocks, a five-storey retail component and a 12-storey university block including a Performing Arts Centre with LEED Gold and GreenRE certifications.

Meanwhile, its flagship senior living residence Sunway Sanctuary is targeted to commence operations in 1Q2023. It will offer 473 studios, one- and two-bedroom suites and close to 100,000 sq ft of facilities and amenities.

“Towards this aim, we are seeing Sunway City Kuala Lumpur as a ‘living lab’ that brings collaborators to work together with our community of engineers, architects, software developers, researchers and young talents to create and test-bed new solutions to meet humanity’s biggest challenges,” she says.

The group also launched Sunway XFarms, an agritech company addressing food security through urban farming innovations. Sunway XFarms has nourished more than 1,800 families with over 15,000kg of leafy vegetables grown and harvested right from the urban farm in Sunway’s flagship smart sustainable city Sunway City KL since its inception. The vision is to propagate the urban farms across our developments so that fresh, healthy and pesticide-free produce is accessible to every neighbourhood within a 5km radius.

42KL, Malaysia’s first coding school with zero tuition fees, zero teachers and zero traditional classrooms offering an innovative education model designed to develop the skills needed to jumpstart a career as a software engineer leveraging a project-based learning approach, was also launched by the group. It is one of the first coding schools in Southeast Asia, with the first established in Paris, France and the second in Silicon Valley, the US.

It is also currently researching driverless buses for the township’s bus rapid transit system, solar-powered water filtration systems, and carbon capture technology to rapidly eliminate greenhouse gases.

With the advancement of 5G, the group expects to see the development of smart solutions in the areas of public safety and security, telehealth, e-learning, hospitality, leisure and retail experiences using the latest telecommunications technology. It is currently managing energy consumption, powering safety and security in the township with Internet of Things devices. The usage of 5G will also allow Sunway to reduce the consumption of resources and energy, enhance education and healthcare, produce security enforcement and improve traffic systems — driving low-carbon cities that are economic and innovation powerhouses that ultimately empower citizens to thrive.

Sarena explains that in the pipeline is enhanced remote education, tapping into facial recognition and artificial intelligence. Blockchain technology will be used for the transparency and authenticity of academic certificates delivered to university students.

“To improve internal processes in the township, robotic process automation technologies such as software robots will automate mundane and repeatable tasks. Telehealth capabilities will be expanded to include the delivery of medicines using drones. We hope to replicate innovations that were started in Sunway City KL in our other townships as well as in other geographies so that we can leapfrog growth for communities and continue to do well by doing good,” she says.

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