Singapore – Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd announced today that it has secured Merrill Lynch as the anchor tenant for its new office development in the HarbourFront Precinct. Called Mapletree Lighthouse, this six-storey office building will have a net lettable area (“NLA”) of 200,000 sq ft.
In a ground breaking ceremony to mark the start of the construction of Mapletree Lighthouse, investment bank Merrill Lynch announced that it had pre-committed to taking up 100% of the floor space.
The new office will house Merrill Lynch’s global support centre for its private banking and global markets businesses and will be its third IT and operations hub worldwide. In the interim, Merrill Lynch has set up a 55,000 square feet support centre at the HarbourFront Centre and will move into its new premises when Mapletree Lighthouse is completed in the last quarter of 2008.
Mr Edmund Cheng, Chairman of Mapletree said, “We are pleased to welcome Merrill Lynch to the HarbourFront Precinct. The fact that Merrill Lynch has chosen this location is a big endorsement of the attractiveness of the HarbourFront Precinct for blue chip companies, outside of the Central Business District.”
He added, “From a place known formerly for its World Trade Centre and exhibition halls, the HarbourFront Precinct has been transformed into a vibrant and bustling integrated waterfront business and lifestyle hub with the coming on-stream of VivoCity and St James Power Station in the past two months. We are delighted with the strong interest for office space in the HarbourFront precinct and we look forward to welcoming more companies to join us in the precinct.”
Ms Diane Schueneman, Merrill Lynch’s Head of Global Infrastructure Solutions said, “Merrill Lynch chose to set up this service centre in Singapore because of the robust infrastructure, the stable environment and the highly educated workforce. We are delighted to be the anchor tenant in this state of the art facility at HarbourFront, and we look forward to operating in Singapore for many years to come.”
The Mapletree Lighthouse will be the latest addition to the HarbourFront Office Park, which now comprises HarbourFront Tower One, HarbourFront Tower Two, Keppel Bay Tower, HarbourFront Centre and SPI Building. It will be one of the two latest new office buildings planned for the HarbourFront Precinct. The other will be developed on the site of the existing SPI Building. Together, these office buildings will yield 2.35 million sq ft of quality office space.
