The company yesterday also announced its collaboration with PTT Global Chemical Plc (GC) to develop upcycled building materials from plastic waste. The materials will be in the construction of MQDC’s residential projects that are planned for this year and the next, he said.

Visit said that its Forestias project is the first to use the upcycled plastic waste. It has gone into the construction of a 5-kilometre network of footpaths that will take at least 160 tonnes of the plastic waste. The plastic is being provided by GC, which collects it from the sea.

Later, the company’s Research & Innovation for Sustainability Centre (RISC) will carry out research and development into the use of other such materials for infrastructure needs at its projects, Visit said.

MQDC plans to launch five residential projects in the second half of this year. The Bt90 billion Forestias project was launched in the first half of this year. The pace of launches marks a reduction from an earlier estimate of 10 residential project launches this year. The developer took a more conservative stance after seeing that demand in the first of this year was stable in comparison with the same period of last year, Visit said

“Apart from the new projects to be launched this year, we will use upcycled plastic waste in all of the new projects launches for next year,” he said.

RISC’s chief adviser, Assoc Prof Dr Singh Intrachooto, said that RISC is working with Kasetsart University and the Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi on the research and development of construction products from upcycled plastic waste to be used in buildings developed by MQDC.

“This is the first time that a Thai property firm is using upcycled plastic waste to build its construction projects. This will help the country to reduce plastic waste and move it to zero-waste status in the future,” Singh said.

According to the Natural Resources and Environment Department, Thailand has generates about two million tonnes of plastic waste year over the past decade. Of that amount, just half a tonne annually has been reused or recycled. Thailand is ranked the world’s sixth-biggest contributor to plastic pollution in the oceans among 192 countries, the department said. The 23 coastal provinces generate an estimated 11.47 million tonnes of waste daily.

GC’s senior vice president of corporate affairs, Warawan Tippawanich, said that the company works with communities around its plant in Rayong province to collect plastic waste, which will be provided to MQDC. The company is also collaborating with others firms to promote the use of recycled and upcycled plastic waste as part of efforts to help reduce the amount of plastic waste in the country.

The project has a total of 36 units set on a 37-rais plot of land in Pattanakarn Soi 30.

“Baan Sansiri Pattanakarn is our second flagship super-luxury single house project built on the legendary success of Baan Sansiri Sukhumvit 67, launched in 2006 and widely acclaimed to be the last complete society of super luxury living in the heart of Sukhumvit,” explains the company’s chief executive officer Apichart Chutrakul yesterday.

According to Vilasinee Dejamornthan, the company’s executive vice president of project management (Low Rise), Baan Sansiri Pattanakarn is located on a 37-rai plot of land and comprises 36 units of two-storey single houses in four types on 150–560 square wah of land with floor spaces of between 459 and 941 square metres.

“Southeast Asia is an emerging region for luxury boutique hotel operators as governments are starting to recognise the economic potential of the tourism industry and more destinations are getting developed for tourism,” says Boyen in an exclusive interview with The Nation.

“As a result, we see more luxury boutique hotels opening in the Southeast Asia region including 7 Secrets Resort and Wellness Retreat Lombok, Akyra Sukhumvit Bangkok (June 2018) and Cape Fahn Koh Samui (August 2018). At SLH, we are actively looking for suitable hotels to join the brand in this region, with some of the top Southeast Asia cities requested by our guests being Hanoi, Langkawi, Yangon, Manila and Ho Chi Minh,” he said.

Boyen said that SLH was started in London in 1991 to provide a distribution platform with sales and marketing solutions that enable independent hoteliers to compete in a global market against branded hotels. Over the past 27 years, SLH has grown from a collection of 70 hotels in 11 countries to over 500 hotels in more than 80 countries around the world, including hotels with cutting-edge design and city-centre sanctuaries, along with historic country mansions and remote private islands.

Thailand, with 21 SLH hotels, has the largest cluster of the 43 hotels in Southeast Asia.

“We are growing quickly in the Southeast Asia region,” Boyen said, pointing to recent additions including 7 Secrets Resort and Wellness Retreat in Lombok, the Seminyak Beach Resort & Spa in Bali and Mangala Resort & Spa in Kuantan. The company will also soon welcome its latest properties: city centre hotel Akyra Sukhumvit Bangkok this month and private island resort Cape Fahn (Ko Samui) in August.

Boyen said that SLH treats its hotel members like family and is happy to grow together with them. In Thailand, SLH have three such hotel groups:

1 137 Pillars Hotels: SLH started with their first hotel in Chiang Mai in 2013 and added their second hotel in Bangkok in April last year, with more to come.

2 Akaryn Hotel Group: SLH has six of their hotels under the portfolio, including the soon-to-open Akyra Sukhumvit Bangkok.

3 Cape and Kantary Hotels: SLH started with Cape Nidhra and added Cape Kudu last year, and in August will welcome their third hotel, Cape Fahn.

“Our strong characteristics are independently-spirited; intuitive personalised service; and attention to detail. With every one of our hotels being independently owned, the very nature of an SLH hotel – small in size, luxury and boutique – means that every single hotel can provide a bespoke hotel experience for each of its guests,” he said.

“Luxury today means offering a personalised experience, and guests come to us knowing that we have the perfect hotel to fit their individual requirements. Asean travellers are becoming savvier and more discerning in their hotel choices too,” said Boyen.

“There is a general fatigue with global consolidation, mass production and uniformity, which means that consumers now seek authenticity, community and more emotional connections across all areas of their life, particularly with their travels.

“Southeast Asia’s growing middle class has been experiencing stable income growth as their economies are going through development as emerging urban hubs,” said Boyen. “With more disposable income, they are demanding more personalised experiences when they travel, and are increasingly choosing luxury boutique accommodations over branded conventional alternatives. More luxury brands have also started to court affluent consumers from Southeast Asia (in particular Thailand and Indonesia) as growth slows down in developed markets such as Hong Kong and China.

“Today, technology can help you facilitate guest experiences and problem-solving all the way from pre-stay to post-stay, which is essential for maintaining good relationships with your guests and delivering on the intimate, high-service ethos that boutique hotels are known for.”

SLH now has 528 hotels under its portfolio, with 43 in Southeast Asia. “We’ll be continuing our expansion in Southeast Asia and throughout Asia Pacific. We hope to grow to 600 hotels by 2020,” said Boyen.

The long-pursued one-child policy has now left Chinese people with a problem as a growing number of senior citizens have to bank on their only son or daughter to bear the high cost of taking care of their aged parents while also having to provide for their own children.

Private investors see opportunities to provide specialised residential units for ageing people.

The Lake Dian International Health and Retirement Resort in Yunnan province is one of them.

The developer, taking advantage of the relatively pleasant weather in Yunnan, has built residential units targeting senior citizens. The service was launched last year.

Yunnan is reputed to have a year-round spring-like climate with an average temperature of 17 degrees Celsius. The complex includes hospitals, a learning centre, fast food centres, cafeteria, shopping and outdoor space for exercise.

Peng Chenlu, aged 82, moved in one month ago. He now lives with his wife and pays about 6,000 yuan (Bt30,000) per month for rent and other services for two people.

“I come from Hunan province because I like the weather here,” said Peng. “The air is fresh with oxygen and the environment is nice,” he said through a translator, referring to the green surroundings.

He said his son chose this place for him after looking at other places in China. Now, his only son lives in Shenzhen with his family.

“The rent is quite expensive, but I likes the services and enjoy having many friends,” Peng said.

The 85-square-metre room apartment comprises two bedrooms, a living room, restroom and small kitchen.

The developer has installed an emergency alert in the living room in case they need immediate help. The restroom is equipped with holding bars to prevent them from falling.

Peng said he could buy a bowl of noodles for 8 yuan instead of the normal 10 yuan price at the cafeteria. He was citing discount services from the developer. He said he has a lot of friends and is busy all day long, exercising and playing games with friends.

The project can accommodate about 2,336 senior citizens or 1,168 couples.

Asked why each unit has two bedrooms, Sky Litianbao ,manager of the project, said that Chinese couples typically like to sleep alone and an extra bedroom could also accommodate their children when they come to visit their parents.

According to the project’s brochure, room rent plus food, caring, cleaning and other services cost 7,500 yuan per month for a couple or 5,500 yuan for one person.

For those who have a problem walking or need constant caring, the cost is 12,000 yuan per month.

“There are many residential projects for senior citizens in Yunnan, but our project serves high-end clients from all over China,” added Sky.

There were no grade A office buildings and the best quality developments were Sathorn Thani, Sindhorn Tower I and Amarin Tower.

30 years on, the total office stock is now almost nine million square metres and average grade A central business district (CBD) rents are just under Bt1,000 per square metre.

The top three buildings based on rent levels are Gaysorn Tower, Park Ventures Ecoplex and Bhiraj Tower at EmQuartier.

The first grade A building in Bangkok was Diethelm Towers, now called GPF Witthayu Towers, on Wireless Road which was completed in 1992 and achieved rents of over Bt800 per square metre per month. This was the first building to have variable air volume, air-conditioning improving the ability to keep all parts of the office floor at a constant temperature.

The 1997 Financial Crisis had a huge impact on the Bangkok office market, the closure of the finance companies and downsizing of other tenants meant that in 1998 the total amount of occupied office space fell by almost 300,000 square metres and vacancy rates rose to almost 40 per cent. Rents in most buildings halved when leases came up for renewal. It was only in 2004 that grade A rentals were able to reach the levels that they were at in 1994.

Some of the biggest changes have been in the design and specification of office buildings. Thai developers have listened to tenants’ requirements in terms of providing column free, regular-shaped floor plates, ceiling heights of more than 2.8 metres, adequate lift provision and sophisticated air-conditioning systems. The highest specification office buildings in Bangkok such as Gaysorn Tower, AIA Sathorn Tower and Park Ventures Ecoplex match the quality of the best office buildings in other countries.

About 80 per cent of the total Bangkok office stock is single ownership buildings and there has been no new strata-title office condominium development for more than 20 years. This is because tenants prefer single ownership buildings because of better management and the ability to deal with a single owner making it easier to expand within the same building.

The way that tenants use office premises has also changed dramatically, in most cases the days of each manager having their own enclosed office are gone and the move has been towards open-plan, flexible work space.

In some cases, companies have moved to activity-based workspace, without each employee having an allocated desk. This has resulted in a much greater population density on office floors requiring better air-conditioning and more efficient lifts.

“Tenants are demanding a greater range of services from landlords and do not just want to pay rent for a concrete box,” said Roongrat Veeraparkkaroon, director of advisory & transaction services – office at CBRE Thailand.

Tenants also want a higher specification. “They want to be able to control climate in different areas of the office and to adjust lighting levels. They also require more facilities in the property not just a coffee shop and convenience store,” commented Roongrat. Some tenants want flexible workspace providers such as serviced offices and co-working space to be in the building.

30 years ago, office tenants were just starting to demand features like fire sprinklers, now they are much more sophisticated and demanding a higher specification and more facilities. Many large multinational and Thai companies are concerned about sustainability and want energy efficient buildings with LEED certification.

A new generation of office buildings are now being designed in Bangkok with construction due to start from 2018 onwards and these buildings will have to cater to the increasingly complex demands from tenants who want higher specifications and a greater range and level of services within the building. Tenants are demanding a much higher standard of property management in terms of maintenance, safety procedures and customer service.

Location has always been a critical factor, but the completion of the BTS skytrain in 1999 changed tenants’ priorities. “Today, almost every tenant CBRE speaks to wants to be near and preferably with direct covered access to a mass transit station,” said Roongrat.

Rent is still one of the most important factors for tenants when choosing their new office premises, followed by the location, which is how close the office building is both to the CBD and a mass transit station.

Selecting an office building is now not just about location and cost. Recruiting the best employees is challenging and providing an attractive workplace in terms of location, quality of building and the workspace itself can provide companies with a unique selling point to help them win the struggle to attract talent. This means that the quality of design, specification, facilities and services in a building are becoming increasingly important.

Contributed by CBRE Research Thailand

All the Japanese companies and their Thai partners are keen to develop condominiums that are close to existing and planned routes of Bangkok’s mass transit system.

Tokyo Tatemono Co, a major developer in the Tokyo metropolitan area, set up a joint venture firm with Thai-listed Raimon Land Plc to develop two condominium projects worth Bt9.1 billion in Sathorn and Phrom Pong.

Mitsubishi Estate Group plans to launch three condominium projects with its strategic partner in Thailand, AP (Thailand) Plc, worth Bt20.4 billion in Ratchathewi, Lad Prao and Asoke.

Another Japanese company active in the Thai property market is Tokyu Corporation. It plans to launch two condominium projects worth Bt5 billion under a joint venture firm with its Thai partner, Sansiri Plc, in Ekkamai and Sukhumvit Soi 50.

Katsuhito Ozawa, executive managing officer of Tokyo Tatemono, said earlier that the company believes Thailand’s stable economic growth will continue to create more demand for residential properties.

Tokyu Corporation’s director and senior managing executive officer, Toshiyuki Hoshino, said recently that the company had set aside an investment budget in Asean of US$100 million a year. This year, half of that allocation would go to Thailand, in the belief that the local property market would continue to enjoy strong growth, he said.

Hoshino said that for now, the company’s Asean focus was on Thailand and Vietnam, but that it would later look to expand into other countries in the region. He said that the company was also studying a possible move into the hospitality business in Thailand as part of discussions with Sansiri Plc, its Thai partner for residential projects in the country.

Japanese developers have been flocking to Thailand since Mitsui Fudosan Co teamed up with Ananda Development Plc in 2013. That partnership encouraged other Japanese firms to set up joint ventures in Thailand, such as those between Mitsubishi Estate group and AP (Thailand) Plc, Tokyu Corp and Sansiri Plc, and Nomura Real Estate Development Co and Origin Property Plc.

Housing units built by Japanese-Thai joint ventures from 2013 to 2017 were worth a total of more than Bt150 billion. Over that period, those projects provided more than 30,000 condominium units, according to the survey by The Nation.

The first project will be single-detached houses, the second townhouses, and the last one a condominium.

The company has set aside Bt2 billion to buy land for the projects this year and next year, Chenchai said.