Newton’s Peck Hay Road Site Goes to CDL–Hong Realty at $542.4 Million — Watch for a Launch Around $3,800 PSF

The contest for the Peck Hay Road residential plot in Newton has ended with a City Developments Limited (CDL) and Hong Realty tie-up edging out three rivals. Their winning offer of $542.4 million was the strongest of four bids lodged at the Government Land Sales (GLS) tender.

Spread over the 59,347 sq ft parcel, that bid translates to about $1,865 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr) — making it the second-priciest land rate ever paid for a strictly residential GLS site here. Only one deal has topped it: the $2,377 psf ppr that an SC Global-led consortium staked on the Cuscaden Road site in May 2018, now home to the 192-unit Cuscaden Reserve.

Should the award land in their favour, CDL and Hong Realty — the latter sitting under the Hong Leong Group umbrella — plan a 36-storey tower of roughly 380 homes. CDL holds the larger share of the 80:20 joint venture.

A prime District 9 site at the heart of Newton’s makeover

The plot sits squarely in prime District 9, roughly 200 metres from Newton MRT Interchange, which serves both the North-South and Downtown lines. It will also face a planned extension of Peck Hay Road that is set to link through to Scotts Road.

With a gross plot ratio of 4.9 and a maximum gross floor area of 290,808 sq ft, this is the first parcel released under the Government’s broader plan to reshape Newton into a mixed-use “urban village.” That vision, introduced in the 2025 Master Plan, is expected to deliver about 5,000 additional homes across the Newton Circus, Scotts Road and Monk’s Hill areas.

CDL group chief executive Sherman Kwek tied the bid to that transformation, noting the developer’s interest in adding a landmark residential project as the precinct gains new green links, public spaces and heritage features. He pointed to the site’s closeness to Orchard Road, strong rail connections and surrounding amenities as reasons the eventual project should appeal to buyers.

Four bids — and a notably wide spread

Only four developers entered the fray by the time the tender shut on 11 June, a thinner field than parts of the market had expected.

SRI’s head of research and data analytics, Mohan Sandrasegeran, reckons the low turnout says more about today’s deep pipeline of launch-ready projects and forthcoming GLS plots than about appetite for this particular site. As more land becomes available, he noted, developers can pick and choose, leaning towards parcels that slot neatly into their existing land banks and buyer profiles.

ERA Singapore chief executive Marcus Chu floated a second possibility: some players may be holding back for a juicier site about to close. River Valley Green (Parcel C) — the third Core Central Region plot on the first-half 2026 Confirmed List — goes under the hammer on 18 June, and running two CCR tenders in parallel may have cooled the bidding here.

The four submissions lined up as follows:

The gap between the winning bid and the lowest one came to about 18% — wider than the 8.9% spread seen at the Dunearn Road tender in April, though far narrower than the 38.8% gap recorded at a Bukit Timah Road site in November 2025. The range of bids suggests developers hold differing views on what a 99-year leasehold site in Newton is really worth. Notably, COLI’s $1,583 psf ppr offer was only a touch above the $1,530 psf ppr it had tabled for the Dunearn Road site earlier.

For context, CDL’s top bid edges 2.5% above the $1,820 psf ppr that HH Investment paid for the Bukit Timah Road plot last November — until now the CCR record.

Land rates keep rising even as bidder numbers fall

The trend is clear: top land rates have climbed from $1,410 psf ppr a year ago to $1,820 in November and now $1,865 — even as fewer developers join each tender. Analysts read this as capital being deployed more carefully, with developers favouring sites where the buyer pool is clearly defined.

Realion (OrangeTee & ETC) deputy group chief executive Justin Quek pointed to April 2026 sales figures showing unsold launched inventory in the Core Central Region at around 900 units, below the 1,569 in the Rest of Central Region and 1,312 in the Outside Central Region. Steady sales at projects such as Newport Residences, River Modern and River Green have cleared much of the CCR’s excess stock faster than elsewhere. With fewer unsold CCR homes left, buyers wanting a central-region address have limited options — demand that likely helped push CDL and Hong Realty’s bid higher.

What might the eventual launch price look like?

As a rule of thumb, a $1,865 psf ppr land rate points to an average selling price comfortably above $3,300 psf — and, once building and financing costs are layered in, more plausibly somewhere in the $3,500–$3,800 psf range, consistent with recent CCR debuts.

Forecasts diverge from there. Wong Siew Ying, who heads research and content at PropNex, sees an average clearing $3,400 psf. Leonard Tay, Knight Frank Singapore’s research chief, goes higher still — $3,700–$3,900 psf — with the exact figure hinging on how the developer phases and positions the launch roughly a year from now.

There are reference points nearby. Park Nova on Tomlinson Road has a median of roughly $4,700 psf, with some top-floor units crossing $6,500 psf. Cuscaden Reserve has seen deals from about $3,000 psf, with recent caveats this year starting near $3,200 psf. CDL’s own Newport Residences on Anson Road, launched earlier this year, has recorded transactions around $3,100 psf.

The future project has plenty going for it — a sought-after Cairnhill pocket of District 9, a major MRT interchange close by, and the upside of an emerging mixed-use precinct. The catch is that it would arrive as an early mover, with much of the precinct’s promised community facilities, green corridors and road works still to come.

A school catchment that thins out from 2030

The site falls within 1km of Anglo-Chinese School (Junior) on Winstedt Road and Anglo-Chinese School (Primary) on Barker Road — long a draw for families in this corridor.

That picture changes, though. Under the Ministry of Education’s consolidation plan, ACS (Primary) moves to Tengah in 2030, turns co-ed and leaves the Barker Road campus. ACS (Junior) stays put through 2030 before merging with the Barker Road site in 2033, ahead of a longer-term reconfiguration around 2039.

Other established schools in the area include St Margaret’s School (Primary), Singapore Chinese Girls’ Primary and St Joseph’s Institution Junior. Buyers banking on the ACS name should note that by the time the new development is built, the headline primary school that has historically anchored family demand here will already be on its way out — though ACS (Junior) should remain within 1km until completion.

What’s next

URA is expected to confirm the award of the Peck Hay Road site in the coming days. Beyond that, two events are worth watching: the eventual launch of HH Investment’s Bukit Timah Road project next to Newton MRT (won at $1,820 psf ppr last November), which will set the local benchmark for new 99-year leasehold pricing; and next week’s River Valley Green (Parcel C) tender, the final CCR site on the first-half 2026 Confirmed List. With other CCR plots at Orchard Boulevard and Holland Plain still ahead, that result will be the last clear central-region land-price signal before supply tightens and developers turn more selective again.

If all the sites on the 2026 Confirmed List are awarded, around 9,320 new private homes could reach the market over the next two years — among the highest annual supply levels seen in recent memory.