By THEAN LEE CHENG leecheng@thestar.com.my
BALI: Adiva, a precinct within Desa ParkCity in Kepong, Kuala Lumpur, has been named the world’s best residential (low rise) category at the 61st World Congress of the International Real Estate Federation (Fiabci) here last Thursday.
Fiabci is a French acronym for the Paris-based federation founded in 1948 to highlight real estate specialities and activities.
The 11-acre Adiva precinct won the Fiabci Prix d’Excellence Award under the residential (low rise) category.
The project comprises 160 triple, double-storey and walk-up apartments set against meandering linear parks within the masterplanned development of Desa ParkCity.
Desa ParkCity is a project by Perdana ParkCity Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Sarawak-based Samling group.
The Adiva is the third precinct to be developed in Desa ParkCity after Safa and Nadia
About 10 precincts are already occupied around a commercial area and work is in progress for the rest of the 500-acre development.
Adiva was the third precinct to be developed after Safa and Nadia. The developer has a vision to turn what used to be a quarry into one of the city’s most beautiful landscaped residential community.
The runner-up in the same category is Jakarta Garden City, a joint-venture development between Singapore’s Keppel Land and Indonesia’s PT Modernland Tbk.
The Fiabci Prix d’Excellence Awards received 54 entrants from 11 countries vying for 14 categories.
Perdana ParkCity group CEO Lee Liam Chye, who has been with the project from its birth, said: “We bought this land of about 500 acres for RM10 per sq ft in June 2000. It was a wilderness with rocks, granite and lots of trees and was part of what is today Country Heights Damansara.
“It was a hillock with ravines and ridges – a hot potato that no one wants – and we carved out the different parcels.
“People may say we paid RM10 per sq ft for this land, but we also spent RM250mil to blast the rocks and prepare it for development. It was a tremendous challenge but amid all that wilderness, I saw the potential.”
Lee said he and his team worked with the local authorities because legislations and town-planning controls had to be amended to legitimise and validate this new housing concept.
Adiva, with its ideals and ideas, played a large part in convincing the authorities to respond favourabley in facilitating the changes.
“I was educated in Britain and when I go there (Europe), especially to Paris, these places are so absorbing. I asked myself, ‘What is it about these places that provoke such emotions within me?’
“I asked myself many times. Today, I have the answer. The emphasis is on authenticity, the embodiment of history and culture. When I set out to plan and build this place, I wanted to create that sense of place and space. It’s exactly 10 years now and I have learned so much,” said Lee.
“When you see a duck swimming in the water, you only see the serenity and gentleness of the scene, but you do not see the furious paddling under the water. The same goes for the development of Desa ParkCity.”
Sime Darby group will operate a hospital there. A contract to build it will be awarded in about two weeks and the hospital is expected to be operational by the third quarter of 2012.
Another contract to build an international school was awarded two weeks ago. This will be completed by the middle of next year.
