Decentrum City Master Plan

One of the reason I was attracted to the Decentrum project was that the developer had a masterplan for the entire area surrounding the project. A masterplan is basically long term strategy, it outlines what is the vision of the company regarding the project, this provides a guide for the developer to maximize the value of their properties.

The Decentrum City developer Protasco envisions the area around Jalan Ikram to be an integrated development with retail, office, service residences and MICE elements. The developer Protasco will launch the project one by one on the parcel of land around Jalan Ikram.

The gross development value of the entire masterplan is 10bil.

The future projects described in the Masterplan includes :

• 20 storey, low density serviced apartments 
• 3 storey retail mall
• 9 storey SOHO tower
• Entertainment venues
• Floating park
• Stylish F&B outlets
• Building-to-building pedestrian links
• Underground parking & road connectivity
• Bicycle & motorcycle lanes
• Intelligent traffic planning
• Landscaped gardens & sky parks
• Office towers
• Convention center
• Hotel

High Rise Skyscrapers everywhere

Floating gardens

Walkways and bicycle lanes

Bicycle friendly place

Apparently, the master plan is designed by world renowned urban planners Duany and Players-Zyberk from United States.  http://www.dpz.com/

Decentrum Residences for Mid Level Executives

The urbanization trend where people from other states in Malaysia migrate to the greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley region is undeniable. The primary reason is because this is where the jobs are. These people who come migrate over will create a demand for housing. As such, one of the key themes in property investing is to buy where the jobs are.

There is no shortage of medium income executives around Decentrum City Bangi. Just 10minutes away is a road called Jalan Ayer Hitam where most of the big bank’s data center are. If you drive along this road, you will see Public Bank IT & Training Center, Maybank Training Center, RHB Data Center, CIMB Training Center. This area was a government initiative to drive banks to place their data centers outside of the city of Kuala Lumpur as prudent risk management. Each of these centers are as big as 5 football fields. In Public Bank IT & Training Center alone there is already around 600 staff stationed there. Add up the staff in Maybank, CIMB and RHB total should be around 1800 staff. In addition to that Petronas and TNB have got very big research centers here also. These people currently stay in Puchong, Seri Kembangan, Serdang and Kajang area which is much further away from Decentrum City.  

Therefore, I predict that Decentrum City Bangi will be able to satisfy the pent up demand for housing for mid level executives in this area.

1 room Decentrum Residences vs SOHO unit

Above the De Centrum mall, there are 2 blocks of premises, one for De Centrum Residences while the other for De Centrum SOHO . The Decentrum Residences block was launched first and the SOHO (Small Office Home Office) block was launched later. When the residences unit was launched, the SOHO units were not for sale.  Sales person mentioned that the SOHO block was initially pledged to be built as a 4 star hotel chain. However later the talks broke down and it was launched as SOHO units.

Size wise and features, the Decentrum Residences and SOHO units look like very similiar products but if studied closely there are some subtle differences between the 2 products. Both are single room units.

Below is the layout of Decentrum Residence and SOHO.  Studying the floor layout shows that De Centrum Residences floor space is separated by rooms while the SOHO units is one big room.

De Centrum Residences Floor Layout

De Centrum SOHO Floor Layout

A brief summary between the Decentrum Residences and SOHO units are listed in the table below.

SOHO	Residence
Sold without parking lot	Comes with parking lot (accessories package
Not designed to have rooms, open flow	Comes with clearly designated rooms
No laundry area	Comes with laundry yard
More expensive electricity and water due to commercial title status	Normal residential tariff
Full height windows	Half height windows

Residences is like a standard home with all designated spaces like dining, washing area etc while SOHO is more like just a hotel room which focuses only on providing a place to sleep.

At first glance, it would seem like the SOHO has less amenities. The units also do not come with car park.  However, SOHO units has got a market for it, they are designed for modern lifestyles whereby the person living in it only uses the place to rest while other stuff like washing of clothes, food and transport are outsourced to external operators. A person staying in a SOHO is someone who does not cooks, washes his clothes and travels using public transport or works within close vicinity. The success of SOHO units will largely depend the facilities and amenities around the property. The developer needs to ensure that within very close distance, there are laundrette shops (Kedai Dobi), restaurants and public transport. This is why a SOHO unit is most suitable to be built within a integrated development with shops, offices and hotels within the same development.

So why choose SOHO ?

Working adult bachelor 

If you're a bachelor living a fast pace lifestyle, the SOHO would be better option. When you're out there busy earning big money, the last thing you need to worry is to wash your laundry, your time is best spent on earning money, leave the laundry to the dry cleaners. You also will appreciate the SOHO design which is more free flowing with no wall partitions. The SOHO is very suitable for a single occupant living.

AirBnb or homestay
AirBnb is a listing site which allows people to rent out their place. People who own a room or place lists their property in AirBnb and people who are looking for a place will be matched. SOHO units are very suitable to be used as homestay property. As mentioned SOHO units are more for resting so using it for shortterm rentals on AirBnb would be good.

Why choose Residences ?

Couples or small family
If you're a couple or a bachelor who likes to host, then the residences block would be more suitable for you.

Students couples
You have rooms and privacy

Decentrum Site Progress - 30-5-15

Taken just right out of the Kajang Toll Exit at Kajang Seremban Highway. Progress seems to have slowed a bit after a slight boost of construction activities over the past 2 months. At the moment the verdict is the developer can be able to deliver the product within the promised period. 

Developer is now collecting TNB Electrical Deposit from purchasers to register for electricity supply. Initial deposit is RM 500 and above. This means the next progressive payment is coming soon.

The next progressive payment would be for 

2f : The sewerage works serving the said building

2g : The drains serving the said building

2h : The roads serving the said building

This is going to happen soon as the developer has started to do the roads serving the building. 

Shopping Malls in South Klang Valley

Below are the shopping malls ready and under contruction in South Klang Valley area. It should drive further migration of the population towards the southern regions of Klang Valley. 

Looking from the list, Cyberjaya will have the most malls but considering the amount of development planned there, data center, office space, education, commercial and residential, it should be sustainable in the long term. However in the short to medium term there will be very fierce competition for retail space and will probably be a renter's market for maybe 3 years. 

The ability to differentiate will be very important. The smaller malls have to focus and have selective tenant mix rather than getting a full range of tenants.

Cyberjaya

DPulze Shopping Centre
Centrus Shopping Mall

3rd Avenue (Under Construction)

Pan'gaea Shopping Mall (Under Construction)

Roppongi Mall (Under Construction)

SkyPark Cyberjaya  (Under Construction)
The Place Cyberjaya  (Opening Soon)
Cyberjaya City Centre (PR1MA housing)
Shaftsbury Square 

Bangi

Decentrum Mall
Gateway@KLIA2 

Sepang
Mitsui Outlet Park KLIA

Putrajaya

Alamanda

IOI City Mall

Don't play play, Protasco, the De Centrum development project is an award winning developer. The project was listed as "Best Mixed Development" by Property Insights Magazine.

Below is an interview with the developer

Very notable Quotes :

Green Hanging Gardens all over the place

De Centrum Sky Park at Level 9

Facilities level in a condominium refers to the floor which houses all the shared facilities like pool, gym, courts, playground and small parks. This term has undergone an upgrade in name, some condonimum projects refer the facilities level to Sky Terraces, Sky Gym, Sky Club, Sky Lounge, Eko Terraces, Eko Lounge etc. The common theme here is to add the word 'Sky' and 'Eko'. 

For the Decentrum Project, they refer the facilities level to Sky Park. Located at level 9, the gym and infinity pool will be situated here. The shared barbecue area is also located here. There is suppose to have a cafe and shaded park around here.  

Updated from project slides :
The list of facilities to be provided by developer at the Sky Park is :

• Infinity Swimming Pool
• Lap Swimming Lane (this I like)
• Gazebo by the pool
• children's pool
• children's playroom
• children's playground
• reading lounge
• cafe
• jacuzzi
• laundrette
• surau
• gymnasium 

Decentrum SkyPark Artist Impression

MRT 2 Stations (Revised Link)

Initially, there was suppose to be an MRT2 station very near the De Centrum City. Yours truly bought the project primarily due to the MRT2 project.  The site was proposed to be in front of the uniten food court, hence the station was called Uniten MRT2 station.

During the recent months, the alignment was changed a bit and now it is no longer within  walking distance from the MRT2 to the De Centrum project. The Uniten MRT2 station was removed from the alingnment making the closet MRT2 station the UPM station. According to what MRT corp has drawn out, the MRT2 station is inside UPM (University Putra Malaysia). 

Based on the site progress, the De Centrum developer Protasco is building a bus station in front of the project. If SPAD can use its RapidKL busses to collect passengers from Decentrum to MRT2 then the prospects of the development would be more positive.

As for MRT1, the nearest station is Kajang whereby the developer Protasco has proposed to set up a feeder bus service from De Centrum City to Kajang MRT station.

Decentrum Site Progress - 26-5-15

70% completed based on progressive billings. After rushing to build the four walls up to the top floors, there was a slowdown for a while and then suddenly the developer started from the bottom floors again by painting and putting in the hard furnishings like windows.

In addition to that, seems like the road leading toward the property is also being widened and redone. I suspect the trees which are blocking the view of the mall will be chopped off. The bus stop in front of the property also seems like ready already.

SOHO and Residence component seem like on schedule to complete before November.

At the moment the mall component doesn't look very aesthetically pleasing yet, it looks more like a normal office 3 storey office block. However, based on the original design, developer suppose to put some decorative panelling to make it look more like a neighborhood mall. Let's hope the arkitek Veritas Design lives up to their name in doing good design. This place is no Tribeca (a high end condo by Veritas Design) but being 50% of it good enough already.

Decentrum Mall - Ready in Nov 2015

The pictures above are taken from artist sketches of the Decentrum Mall. The drawings look really impressive as compared to what is currently under construction. Hopefully I am proven wrong on this as the drawings show very good use of lightings and greenery to accentuate feel of the mall. 

Target opening will be Nov 2015.  There will be a total of 3 levels and mall space of only 160,000 sq ft.  Developer website says that it can fit over 120 retail units.  Just to put things into perspective, 160,000 sq ft is very small, Atria Damansara is listed as 470,000 sq ft, 3 times the size of Decentrum Mall. In fact, I would say it cannot be considered as a mall, instead more like a shopping arcade.  

The success to this mall is to focus on making it a good neighborhood mall. Having a good grocer chain would help and strong F&B tenant at the ground floor and outdoor area. The main strength of this mall is that it is highly visible between the intersections of SKVE and North South. The mall is become a stopover for cars traveling on these highways. 

I predict the developer will have problems renting out the 3rd floor units as this mall is not really suitable for other types of tenants besides F&B and grocers.

Update 2015-09-22

The De Centrum City mall will be called Gallerie @ De Centrum.

Decentrum Site Progress - 10-4-15

Decentrum Location Map

6 minutes from IOI City Mall, Putrajaya

De Centrum Mall, Residence and SOHO Video