Stamford Court, the clock-tower building at 61 Stamford Road between SMU and Fort Canning Park, has reopened as Stamford Place. It was completed in 1996 on a 99-year lease that began in 1994, and Singapore Land Group owned it for thirty years. In October 2024 it was bought by Elevate Capital and its joint-venture partner PGIM Real Estate for $132 million, which EdgeProp reports was below what it would cost to build it again.
Across its 78,190 sq ft of gross floor area, that works out to about $1,690 per square foot, for a lease with 69 years still to run at the time.
What the new owners did
They refitted it rather than rebuilt it. Between October 2025 and August 2026 the interiors were stripped back to the structure and lift core. The granite facade stayed, coated rather than removed: the architects judged that taking the granite off risked damaging the waterproofing and windows. The entrance moved beneath the clock tower, which has a new mechanism.
The building now has food and drink and a convenience store on the ground floor, a 30,000 sq ft co-working space from The Great Room on levels two and three, and 66 serviced apartments, run by Frasers Hospitality, on levels three and four. Studios average about 35 sqm (around 380 sq ft) and dual-key units about 50 sqm (around 540 sq ft). Opening rates start at $268 a night, and the operator expects entry-level rooms to settle near $300.
Why this matters if you own an older leasehold home
Stamford Place is 32 years into its 99-year lease: roughly where condos completed in the mid-1990s are now. Its owners did not wait for a redevelopment or sell for land value. They spent money making the existing building fit how the area is used today, betting that 67 years is long enough to earn that spending back.
That is the professional view of a lease with two-thirds left: still a long-life asset, priced on what it can earn. We compared five years of freehold and 99-year sales in our Sunday Special on freehold vs 99-year, and the true-cost comparator sets two homes side by side with every cost included.
For a condo, the same choice is made by hundreds of owners rather than one: upgrade the estate through the management corporation, or sell collectively. The rules for the second path have just changed; see what the new collective-sale law means for older condos. Roov's en bloc probability tool gauges how likely a collective sale is for your estate, and stay, sell or restructure weighs holding against moving on.
For landlords nearby: short stays are a different market
At $268 to $300 a night, a month at the serviced apartments would cost roughly $8,000 to $9,000. Homes nearby rent for much less on an ordinary lease. URA records show units under 600 sq ft in District 7 (Bras Basah and Bugis) let for a median $4,150 a month across 445 contracts from January to August 2026. District 6, where Stamford Place sits, has few homes: 33 such contracts, at a median $4,994.
That gap is not something a condo owner can capture. Private homes in Singapore cannot be let for less than three consecutive months, so the week-long stays these apartments are built for are closed to them. A landlord competes on the long lease, and the rental yield calculator shows what a unit actually earns once costs come off. For the other end of the market, our co-living guide explains how room-by-room renting works.
The same bet, a second time
In February 2026 Elevate, this time with LaSalle Investment Management, bought Merchant House at 51 Merchant Road for $121.8 million, about 20 per cent below its $152.7 million valuation. It sits on a 99-year lease from 1993 with about 66 years left and 71,111 sq ft of gross floor area. Omnicom has taken 50,000 sq ft on a five-year lease, and an 18-month refit will turn the atrium into food and wellness space.
Not every owner of a building from that generation makes the same call. HarbourFront Centre has closed to be rebuilt, and Marina Square is being redeveloped with 204 homes. Where the lease is long enough and the location still draws people, a refit can be the cheaper way to a better building.
Own a unit in an older leasehold condo and weighing whether to hold, sell, or wait for an en bloc? Roov's agent can pull recent prices for your project and lay out what each path is worth. Get in touch.