This review is on the residential condo of Setia Walk only.
But what is Setia Walk actually? It’s one of the last parcel of land in SP Setia’s Pusat Bandar Puchong, and the most lucrative by any standards. In their own words, Setia Walk is anintegrated residential and commercial development which comprises offices, retail blocks, an entertainment complex, serviced and residential apartments. The commercial area will combine conventional shop offices and a shopping mall (most of this is taken from their recent press release, since they say it best).
Phase One will consist of 85 blocks offering 170 retail and 336 office units. Prices of shop offices range between RM2.5 million and RM8.9 million per block. Retail lots will be located on the ground and first floors, and offices will occupy the higher floors. Phase Two will feature a business hotel, office tower and entertainment complex which will house cineplexes, bowling alleys and karaoke lounges; while apartments will be built in Phase Three.
The residential component will include three 27-storey blocks offering a total of 759 units. Prices start from RM210,000. There will also be 46 small office home office (Soho) units.
Taking a glance at their sales chart show that the shoplots in Phase One have been doing brisk business at the pre-launch, with most if not all of them having been snapped up. And for the time being, they have opened up one tower (out of the three planned to be built) of the residential condo for booking, the one located nearest to Bandar Puteri.
Setia Walk is right next to the LDP, located at near the elevated U turn. There will be two main entrances to the development, one off the slip road from the highway, another one is near the entrance to Taman Wawasan, which you will need to make a U turn at the junction. At the moment, the traffic can be very heavy coming out of Pusat Bandar Puchong due to the high volume of cars at peak hours, this will inevitably be compounded when Setia Walk is completed. The developers plan to add traffic lights to the the exit junction, this maybe a little trickier than it would seem if you are familiar with the road network there. But lets see how it pans out.
On one side is the existing shoplots of Pusat Bandar Puchong, behind the Setia Walk is the existing apartments and landed homes, and or the other side is the newest (and last phase) of Bandar Puteri Puchong developed by IOI Properties. There can be no through road linking the two commercial centres, since they have abutted the entertainment complex right where the road meets. Besides, the whole concept of Setia Walk does not utilizes roads, cars go straight into underground parking.
The condo blocks form a line right at the rear of the development, at the higher ground overlooking the commercial area. For the moment the they are opening one of the three blocks for booking, and it is the block nearest to Bandar Puteri.
There are 15 units per floor, and start from the 8th floor up to the 23rd floor. The residential block consists of two asymmetrical wings, 8 units per floor on the left wing and 7 on the right wing. The space for the 8th unit on the right wing is taken up by the common lifts. The three lifts service all the units on the floor.
So then, the units either face LDP, or away from the LDP, which is facing the Bukit Hitam forest reserve and the rest of Taman Wawasan / Pusat Bandar Puchong. While the front units facing LDP may not be as appealing, they have a good view of the boulevard and commercial area below. But since the apartments are the furthest away from the highway, they will not be affected so much by the noise and pollution from the traffic as you would think.
One block has 253 units, which is pretty low dense. It is a wise move by the designers to keep the number of residential units low (or maybe they were limited by the plot ratio), which will indirectly mean a strong demand for the condo units, while keeping the price of residential units in their Taman Wawasan healthy. There are already many existing apartments in this area, about 8 years old but priced lower, and with this Setia Walk, the demand for those units will surely be boosted.
The facade of the condo is quite unspectacular - nothing like the more upmarket condos that are have appeared around the Klang Valley recently. The reasons for this could be guessed, they are obviously keeping the cost of the condo down (in view of the volatile price of construction materials) and they definitely want to maintain the price of the units attractive to investors. Secondly, the attraction of the condo lies mainly in the boulevard and its landscaped water features, so perhaps it would be better to keep the expenditure where it mattered most.
But coming back to the condo - sizes available are 845, 1,007, 1,096 and 1,396sq.ft. The smallest units are almost a studio apartment design with 1+1 rooms, and the largest unit has 3 rooms. The largest unit (Type A) at 1,396sq.ft. are obviously targeted at small families who need the space, while most of the other units are targeted at the lucrative young working adult group, the mobile generation that will benefit most from the chic lifestyle that the whole Setia Walk encompasses. It is, after all, about hitting the right niche market.
Each unit is provided with one to three parking bays.
Talking about hitting the market, the prices are from RM273k to RM400k, but these prices are subject to confirmation when the official launch takes place. Judging from that pricing we’re looking at about RM320psf. Considering the good location in what can be said to be heart of Puchong, and with the freehold status of the land (although this is an apartment) and the track record of the developer, they may feel the price is justified. Whether you perceive this to be on the high side or low side depends very much on how sold you are on the whole lifestyle boulevard concept of Setia Walk. At the heart of it all, the condo is unspectacular because they aren’t really marketing and selling just the condo, they are basically marketing the high concept of the development. If you like the concept of the whole development, you will want to invest in the condo, or stay there yourself. That, we feel is the bottom line. We like that they have kept the number of units low, although they may still change the number of units for the other two blocks that have yet to be launched. source : http://propertymalaysia.blogsome.com/2008/09/21/setia-walk-pusat-bandar-puchong/
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