Asia Pacific
ULI Young Leaders pitch ideas for a site being developed by Swire Properties in the Star Street neighbourhood in Wan Chai, Hong Kong—an area full of heritage and historic buildings.
A prime spot for development is up for bids. Will existing rules yield the mix and vitality befitting such a prominent spot?
Set against an urban landscape of concrete, steel, and glass in Tanjong Pagar, Singapore’s central business district, Oasia Hotel Downtown (OHD) stands out with its red silhouette clad in lush greenery. An integrated hotel/office development comprising a 27-story, 314-room business hotel and 100 new-age offices, OHD responds to the government’s vision for the precinct earmarked as the island’s next waterfront city with a mix of business, commercial, and residential activities.
Dr. Cheong Koon Hean, chief executive of Singapore’s Housing & Development Board (HDB), was presented with the J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development at a January 18 ceremony at the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore.
Known as a multicultural melting pot, Singapore is one of the world’s most forward-thinking cities on embracing density, sustainability, and livability as guiding principles for urban design and development in a resource-constrained environment.
Dr. Cheong Koon Hean, a widely acclaimed architect and urban planner credited with shaping much of Singapore’s urban landscape, has been named the 2016 recipient of the ULI J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. Dr. Cheong, the 17th Nichols laureate and the first from Asia, was honored during the 2016 ULI Fall Meeting in Dallas.
Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority has transformed Marina Bay into mixed-use urban neighborhood. public open space, and source of drinking water for the country’s 5.4 million residents.
A new report draws upon Singapore’s successful urbanization experience. Despite its population density, the city-state has consistently ranked favorably in various surveys measuring the livability and sustainability of cities around the globe.
Singapore
A seminar organized by the ULI Singapore NEXT Committee presented attendees with the little-known concept of real estate “tokenization,” or fractional investing/trading, as a potential bridge between private investors and direct ownership. Although not new, tokenization in real estate is a niche market, particularly in Asia Pacific, with Singapore hosting a small number of the specialized digital platforms.
Once the site of an abandoned quarry, Singapore’s Rifle Range Nature Park now serves as a buffer zone protecting one of the island nation’s last primary rainforests, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, from encroaching development and human activity. Located to the reserve’s south, Rifle Range is Singapore’s first net-positive energy nature park, harvesting more energy than its annual operational requirements.
Fourteen developments from across Asia have been named winners of the 2025 ULI Asia Pacific Awards for Excellence, one of the real estate industry’s most prestigious honors. Announced at the 2025 ULI Asia Pacific Summit held in May in Hong Kong, this year’s award winners include projects in Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, the Philippines, and Singapore.
Hong Kong
At the 2025 ULI Asia Pacific Summit—May 26–29, in Hong Kong—a panel of Asian economic and geopolitical experts addressed one of today’s most immediate global concerns: the implications of U.S.–China economic decoupling and the broader geopolitical shifts reshaping global trade and investment.
The creation of public space from unused, underused, or unequally shared linear spaces in urban areas has been happening for a long time. Major reference points in the architectural and planning worlds are Boston’s Emerald Necklace, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (1878–1896); Freeway Park in Seattle (1972-1976); the Baltimore Inner Harbor (1963–1983); the Promenade Plantée in Paris (1987-1994); and the High Line in New York (2005–2019).
Although market dynamics are changing in countries across Asia, new opportunities are opening up in real estate investment