This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 19, 2023 - June 25, 2023

UEM Sunrise Bhd is gearing up to launch The Connaught One serviced apartments in Taman Connaught, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, this month. Adjacent to the Taman Connaught MRT station and the Cheras Sentral Mall, The Connaught One is the developer’s first transit-oriented development (TOD).

With The Connaught One, the developer aspires to build a desirable place for people to live and work in a spatially limited site, says UEM Sunrise CEO Sufian Abdullah in an exclusive interview with City & Country.

Sufian adds that the company had worked on integrating UEM Sunrise’s sustainability blueprint — focusing on liveability, affordability, sustainability and resilience — into the development.

Located about seven minutes from the Taman Connaught MRT station, The Connaught One is spread across a 3.4-acre freehold tract on Jalan 3/144a.

With a gross development value (GDV) of RM747 million, the project will offer two 53-storey towers comprising 1,334 serviced apartments and 15 retail lots. Offering five different layouts with built-ups ranging from 452 to 1,270 sq ft, units at The Connaught One will be priced from RM290,000, with an estimated maintenance fee inclusive of sinking fund from 33 sen psf. The biggest unit has four bedrooms and three bathrooms. The smaller units will have at least one parking bay and the bigger units will have up to two parking bays.

The retail lots will have sizes ranging from 763 to 1,440 sq ft; prices will be announced at a later date. The development will have a covered pedestrian walkway that connects to both the Taman Connaught MRT station and the Cheras Sentral Mall.

The Connaught One, which is expected to be completed in 4Q2027, is also UEM Sunrise’s first project under the Rise Series.

For context, UEM Sunrise recently launched its Happy+ product series, comprising the Kasih Series, Rise Series, Nest Series, Club Series and Luxe Series. Developed from the core design DNA of the group, Happy+ is a product series that categorises the company’s residential products into segments based on its customers’ lifestyle needs.

The Rise Series is designed with flexible and agile spaces that can shape and shift to suit residents’ lifestyles. These homes embody practical living with an environment that exudes simplicity, recreation and convenience.

In terms of architectural design, Sufian says the towers in The Connaught One are angled in a way that allows the units to have various external views. “This design resulted in a robust, yet practical, massing strategy that breaks away from the usual tall rectangular box-like buildings.

“The angularity of both towers allows for 84% of the homes to be north-south facing units. We also ensured that all bedroom windows did not face air wells.”

Sufian highlights that the units and facilities were designed with the new normal in mind. “As it is our first TOD, it also translates as our first entry into something that defines what living in the city is all about,” he says.

The facilities in The Connaught One include an outdoor gym, a playground, sports hall with badminton and half basketball courts, a jogging track and bicycle lanes, parcel room, mail room and e-hailing waiting lobby, a children’s nursery, surau, swimming pools, yoga deck and community garden. To cater for the new normal lifestyle, Sufian says the development will also offer a co-working lounge as well as meeting rooms for residents who want to work remotely.

“The Connaught One saw the need for spaces where most would expect to have a working space at home, which is why this upcoming residence is equipped with a co-working lounge where hybrid workers can work conveniently, homepreneurs can conduct their business from home and the boutique retail space [situated on the ground floor] can serve those looking to meet up with friends or business clients,” he elaborates.

Sufian adds that the developer has found creative methods to promote a “stay-fit” mentality among residents of The Connaught One.

“We have this philosophy of activating design. So, whenever we see a functional space, we want to turn it into something more than what it’s generally used for. The Connaught One has an integrated running circuit and facility that goes through the open space and the building.

“The fire escape staircase, which has more than 220 flights of steps, can double as a workout staircase for aerobic stretches and jogging. The staircase links the landscape deck at Level 11 podium to the main multigenerational playground area on the ground level. For children, the development also offers safely curated play slides and climbing ramps.”

Sufian foresees that the development will appeal to a wide variety of homebuyers, including first-time homebuyers, young professionals working in the area and near the city centre, young couples, as well as small and medium dual-income families, plus multigenerational families.

In terms of pricing, Sufian says the developer found that the prices of other high-rise apartments in the area start from RM300,000. Explaining how the price of The Connaught One was set, he says: “We look at the average rent around the area and then at how much we are paying for a room. Our aim is to price The Connaught One just slightly below [that level] so that the monthly mortgage will be slightly lower than the monthly rental of other apartments in the area. Being a TOD, the development does have potential upside and capital gain maybe in five to 10 years.”

Sufian believes building affordable homes should be a joint effort between the government and developers. “It’s important for both the government and developers to work together to come up with a system that allows Malaysians to have access to affordable homes whether through purchasing or renting,” he says.

“Affordable housing is getting a lot more complicated than it was, and it shouldn’t be just the burden of the developers to build them. It has to be a concerted effort and we need to evolve from that.”

Sufian believes senior-friendly elements should also be taken into consideration when building affordable homes. “We have to be mindful that the population in urban areas is increasing. If we look at the average age of Malaysians, there is a need to incorporate senior living facilities into our development frameworks.”

According to Sufian, venturing into TOD was UEM Sunrise’s plan from the start when the group acquired the plot of land in Taman Connaught. “There’s very little understanding of what TOD means in the market now. For us, it meant completely using the one thing that most people associate TODs with, which is the location itself.”

Two of the busiest MRT stations, he points out, are the Tun Razak Exchange station and the Pasar Seni station, which are six and nine stops away from the Taman Connaught station respectively. These stations are also interchange stations that give commuters access to other train lines.

“Having an understanding of that allows us to curate a specific set of features that the development should have. We know this development will cater to those who live, work and often visit the city. We need to translate that into how people can fully use that concept, so a TOD ought to be the most relevant asset type here,” he says.

Sufian says Cheras, which is rich in history, has a lot to offer. “Cheras is one of the earliest districts in Kuala Lumpur. Having an understanding of that, we aim to deliver a balanced mix of product offerings.

“Residents of The Connaught One will range from singles or young professionals to multi-generational families. That product spectrum is something you don’t see so much in Cheras. I’d like to think that, it’s one of the value propositions that we’re bringing to the area,” he says.

Amenities near The Connaught One include shopping malls, eateries, hospitals, banks and places of worship. Taman Connaught is also widely popular for housing one of the longest night markets in Kuala Lumpur.

The Connaught One is accessible via highways such as the Sungai Besi-Ulu Kelang Expressway (SUKE), Cheras-Kajang Expressway (CKE) and Middle Ring Road 2 (MRR2) as well as road networks such as Jalan Cheras.

As part of UEM Sunrise’s transformation plan, Sufian says, the developer is currently shifting its focus towards value proposition for its products. “The priority in our transformation programme is to activate our product pipeline, and that depends on the lock-in value of our land bank.

“A method like this would give us a unified understanding within the organisation that everybody has to work towards greater value proposition. We’d like to think that UEM Sunrise has been transformed into a more balanced real estate offering.

“We’re also looking to enhance our operations. Take our retail offerings, for example. Our retail performance in Publika Shopping Gallery is seeing a yield of three times more than what it was before the past few years. This is partly because we revised our tenant composition by bringing in more relevant tenants.”

UEM Sunrise’s upcoming projects include the second phase of Kiara Bay in Kepong Kuala Lumpur, comprising serviced apartments. Recently, UEM Sunrise also acquired a 3.7ha freehold plot in Kelana Jaya, adjacent to Lebuhraya Damansara-Puchong Expressway (LDP), from the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) for RM155 million. Sufian says the developer is looking to build a serviced apartment project with retail lots on that plot of land.

“The curation of land in Kelana Jaya would be responding to the current needs of the market. There is a need to diversify the product offerings in Kelana Jaya for those who already live there and also those looking to move into the area. We are not going to build a mall or shop offices because Paradigm Mall is just across the road.”

Also in the works are plans to revamp and revitalise the Puteri Harbour area in Johor. Sufian says a few pieces of land in Puteri Harbour were originally slated for something else entirely.

“We went in and revised the master plan so that it would have greater value. We also looked at the current needs of the market in Puteri Harbour, which is to have a mixed development comprising residential and commercial components.”

Also in Puteri Harbour, the developer plans to activate the second phase of Estuari Gardens, comprising residential projects. Sufian says the developer acquired land in Johor, which is part of the Aspira Series. This is poised to be launched at the end of the year.

“The bulk of our land bank is in Johor and, lately, we’ve been seeing increased interest from Singapore and growing interest in very specific asset types, especially industrial and logistics. We’re also reviewing the master plan of Gerbang Nusajaya in Johor to be more receptive to the market’s interest, and that includes industrial parks, data centres as well as accommodation to support these facilities and businesses.

“At the same time, we are infusing that with a curated set of residential offerings that would serve people who live in Johor but work in Singapore. The Nusajaya dream has not died; it is just being rewritten,” Sufian says.

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