When Sebestian Soh’s father, housing developer David Soh began investing in shophouses in 2018, he took an active interest. For Sebestian, Geylang was a neighbourhood that presented the most exciting opportunities.

One of the first acquisitions in Geylang was a row of three adjacent shophouses at 483 to 487 Geylang Road. The shophouses are situated at the junction of Geylang Road and Lorong 27 Geylang.

Three years ago, a massage parlour occupied the first level of 483, a KTV bar was at 485 and a coffee shop with “beer ladies” at 487. An illegal workers’ dormitory operated on the second level. “The shophouses were dirty and rundown,” Sebestian recounts.

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Just down the road is a block of shophouses at 465 and 467 Geylang Road on an island plot fronting Geylang Road and flanked by Geylang Lorong 25. The Sohs purchased the pair of shophouses for $7.15 million each in October 2020. The site came with challenges in terms of road reserve and use restrictions, Sebestian notes. "The purchase price does not reflect the huge risks taken to derisk the site to what it is today," he says.

The two upper floors of the shophouses at 465 and 467 Geylang Road were formerly a workers’ dormitory. The first level was tenanted to an eatery Skewer Bar, co-founded by Singaporean chefs and friends Tan Jun Ann and Vincent Low, which operated there for four years before moving down the lane to a shophouse at 2 Lorong 25 Geylang.

The third acquisition in Geylang was also on an island plot: A block of two shophouses at 211 to 213 Geylang Road. The anchor tenant was New Shanghai KTV Nightclub, which had been there for over 20 years and was once “very popular with national servicemen”, says Sebestian.

The seven shophouses in Geylang comprise 30% of the 23 shophouses worth over $500 million that David Soh accumulated in the four years from 2018 to 2022. The portfolio of shophouses is held under the investment vehicle Meir Investment.

All the shophouses in the Meir Investment portfolio have commercial zoning. While 40% are located in the CBD, the rest are in the city fringe neighbourhoods of Jalan Besar, Geylang and Little India. They are also situated either on a corner or island plot. “These are the hardest to come by,” adds Sebestian.

The new wave

In Sebestian’s view, Geylang has the greatest opportunity for placemaking. “The first wave of transformation was pre-Covid,” says Sebestian. “We have many expatriates in Geylang and a huge French community there.”

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The pandemic has also helped Geylang shed its image as a red-light district, says Sebestian. Many of the KTV bars and massage parlours have also closed. However, Geylang remains popular with the supper crowd. Long-standing eateries include Tan Ser Seng Herbs Restaurant (famous for its turtle soup), G7 seafood restaurant (popular for its frog porridge) and the Geylang Famous Beef Kway Teow.

“Geylang’s natural catchment is the people living in the east,” says Sebestian. “Hence, Geylang has a strong breakfast, dinner and supper crowd.”

While some expatriates left during Covid-19, a new wave of people moved into Geylang: “These are the millennial Singaporeans [born in 1981 to 1996] who saw Geylang as the flagship to launch a business,” says Sebestian, who at 34, counts himself as one.

He asked his father for free reign to manage and reposition the portfolio in Meir Investment. That heralded the launch of Meir Collective as an asset manager and placemaking platform, with Sebestian as its founder and chief placemaker.

In his placemaking efforts at Geylang, Sebestian collaborated with The Afternaut Group, a placemaking design company backed by Formwerkz Architects. Founded seven years ago, some of Afternaut’s works include the OCBC space at Wisma Atria, the City Energy Experience Store in Plaza Singapura, and the Choa Chu Kang Public Library revamp.

“Placemaking gives a sense of identity and connects a community,” says Chew Kok Yong, co-founder of Afternaut. “We rethink the use of old spaces. At the end of the day, it’s about value creation too.”

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One of the first things Afternaut did was to help rebrand Meir Collective “as a platform for other like-minded people to collaborate” in its placemaking efforts in Geylang,  says Chew, also 34.

Co-living operator Cove is one of the first collaborators with Meir Collective. It recently opened 17 mezzanine-style studios on the second level of the three shophouses at 483 to 487 Geylang. The shophouses were built in the 1950s, and Meir Collective had them restored, with the interiors overhauled.

Ji Xiang Ang Ku Kueh And The Hare

Another collaborator in Geylang is Kelvin Toh, the younger son of Toh Poh Seek and Toh Bong Yeo, who founded Ji Xiang Ang Ku Kueh. Their first shop at Everton Park opened in 1988.

Kelvin has opened eight Ji XIang Ang Ku Kueh outlets across Singapore and is heading the business. He intends to open another Ji Xiang Ang Ku Kueh outlet and a new tapas-style café concept, ‘And The Hare’, on the first level of 483 to 487 Geylang next month. Kelvin says the café’s name is a play on Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare.

Ji Xiang specialises in the traditional Chinese pastry Ang Ku Kueh, which means ‘Red Tortoise Cake’ in the Hokkien dialect and symbolises prosperity, longevity and wealth. Hence, ‘And The Hare’ is a new F&B concept.

“We like the demographics here in Geylang; with the temples and associations in the area, it will be a good catchment for our Ang Ku Kueh,” says Kelvin.

‘New-meets-old’ concept

Kelvin believes that Geylang will continue to transform in the coming decades, especially with younger people moving into the area. Given Geylang’s supper culture, he intends to operate And The Hare as a 24-hour business. “There is no F&B establishment like us in Geylang,” he says. “We are a fully operational restaurant, and people can enjoy their food and wine in air-conditioned comfort.”

Sebestian believes Ji Xiang and And The Hare are aligned with his “new-meets-old” concept for the property and the surrounding neighbourhood. “We want to bring in new players and put them alongside the existing players, some of whom have been operating in Geylang for the last 50 to 60 years.”

Adjacent to 483 is the shophouse at 481 Geylang Road, occupied by motorcycle dealer CSTK, which has been there since 1967. At 479 is Catalyst Gym on the ground floor, with a cat boarding and daycare centre above. Chong Tuck Tong Chinese Temple sits in the middle of the row at 477 Geylang Road. Other businesses occupying the row of shophouses include boutique pottery studio Terra & Ember at 473 and Ah Beng Aquarium at 471.

Across the road at 440 Geylang Road is FellasCube, a hipster coffee shop by day and bistro bar by night. It opened in December 2022 and is helmed by 35-year-old former banker Terry Neo, who founded KopiFellas in 2017 to preserve Singapore’s old-school “kopi” heritage.

A few doors down from FellasCube is the family-owned No Signboard Seafood Restaurant at 414 Geylang Road, which opened in the 1990s. No Signboard was also one of the first in a shophouse neighbourhood to offer valet parking back then.

“I grew up eating at No Signboard,” says Sebestian. “Almost every other month, we would be at No Signboard for a family celebration or when someone strikes the lottery. So this part of Geylang brings back fond memories.”

‘Organic contamination’

Therein lies the charm of shophouse neighbourhoods like Geylang, Afternaut’s Chew adds. “There are ordinary, everyday businesses making a living in Geylang, and many of them have been here before us,” he says. “When we ride the placemaking momentum, we want to reach out to other potential partners and get them into the ecosystem. We call it ‘organic contamination’; we don’t try to organise the tenant mix like in a shopping mall.”

The shophouse block at 465 and 467 Geylang Road wasn’t slated for conservation. However, Sebestian and Chew felt it was essential to retain the façade. "It was a challenge to conserve it," says Sebestian. "We had to make many checks to make sure that the structure can be retained." This was before the interiors could be gutted and retrofitted. The plan is to turn the upper floors into co-living spaces managed by Cove and the first level into a new café or restaurant.

Sebestian says it was intentional to purchase the shophouses at 465 and 467 Geylang and 483 to 487 Geylang, which are near each other, separated by just one lane (Lorong 25). “We thought we could create a bigger spark with our placemaking efforts at two clusters of shophouses that are close together,” he says.

“We are talking to some people about reintroducing street soccer in the back alleys,” adds Chew. “There’s much interest in that, although nothing is confirmed. Part of placemaking involves reimagining the use of the built environment, including the back alleys.”

Just down the lane at Lorong, 25 Geylang is the Singapore Wine & Spirit Merchants’ Association building. “It could one day be converted into an F&B concept like Chye Seng Huat on Tyrwhitt Road,” says Sebestian. “It’s not conserved and has a huge redevelopment potential.”

Opposite the Singapore Wine & Spirit Merchants’ Association building is the Skewer Bar at 2 Lorong 25 Geylang. Next door to it is the Coronation Baptist Church, with the Buddha of Medicine Welfare Society, Kwan Yin Chan Lin Zen Meditation Centre and Amitabha Buddhist Centre along the same lane. “Many of the old clan associations and religious institutions are located in this part of Geylang,” says Sebestian.

Residential demand

The block of shophouses at 211 and 213 Geylang Road, just off Lorong 7, will be in the pipeline for a makeover after 465 and 467. The plan is to have Cove co-living spaces on the upper floors with a new F&B concept on the first level of the property at 211 and 213 Geylang too.

“We want to have a co-living component on the upper floors of the shophouses in Geylang as they are congruent to the original Singapore shophouse,” says Sebestian.

Shophouses were built in the 1840s to 1960s, and they were originally designed as a place of business on the first level, with dwelling units for the family on the upper floors. “We want to restore the original shophouse use of the past,” says Sebestian. However, instead of residential apartments, he is bringing in co-living instead.

Most of the demand for residential units in Geylang has come from young Singaporeans moving out to live on their own, Sebestian observes. “It’s just a 20-minute bike ride from Geylang to the CBD,” he says. “Geylang is also well-connected and served by many roads.”

The apartments and condominiums in Geylang — considered a city fringe neighbourhood in the Rest of Central Region (RCR) — appear attractively priced compared to 99-year leasehold condo project launches in the suburbs, which soared above $2,000 psf this year, says Sebestian.

The latest transaction in Geylang was for a 431 sq ft unit at the freehold Casa Aerata (built in 2012) at Lorong 26 Geylang, which changed hands for $658,000 ($1,528 psf) in July, based on a caveat lodged.

The highest psf unit transacted in Geylang this year was also in July: It was for a 2,141 sq ft apartment at 47 Lorong 16 that changed hands for $4.288 million ($2,003 psf). The apartment was built in 2000. Geylang’s main attraction is its diversity and connectivity, says Afternaut’s Chew.

‘Trophy assets’

While his father has been receiving unsolicited offers for his shophouses, Sebestian considers them “trophy assets”. “We are looking at holding them for the long term because placemaking efforts have just started,” he says.

Sebestian is also talking to several other Geylang landlords about managing their shophouse portfolio and helping them reposition their assets.

The latest set of property cooling measures, which came into effect on July 20, requires foreigners who want to buy sites with ‘residential and commercial’ use to seek approval from government authorities. This has focused even more investor attention on shophouses and properties with commercial zoning.

“Given all the regulatory constraints, capital values will only go up,” says Sebestian. “But it’s premature to consider selling at this point. I need to do my job well as a placemaker.”

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