KSL to launch largest mall in Johor

SEGAMAT: KSL Holdings Bhd will launch in two months the biggest commercial complex in Johor, known as the KSL City.

The RM500mil project is located within Century Gardens, opposite Holiday Plaza shopping complex near Jalan Datuk Suleiman.

The project comprises a four-storey retail complex, two 26-storey hotel towers with 950 rooms and two 33-storey apartment towers.

“This is the first development in Johor combining retail, hospitality and high-rise residential living,” group managing director Khoo Cheng Hai told StarBiz after the company AGM recently.

He said the retail complex would offer 500,000 sq ft floor area and house retail outlets, a department store, cineplexes and car park.

He said the five-star KSL Resorts Hotel would be managed by a local hospitality management company.

He said the retail complex and the hotel towers would be completed towards the end of next year and the apartment blocks in mid-2010.

Khoo said the apartment towers would have separate entrances and car parks from the hotel towers.

He said KSL was confident that the hotel would do well as most hotels within the Johor Baru Central Business District currently recorded almost 90% occupancy rate.

“We are also expecting that Johor will benefit from the spillover effects when the two integrated resort projects in Singapore are completed in two years,” said executive director Ku Hwa Seng.

He said the Singapore Tourism Board was projecting some 17 million tourists to visit the republic next year.

Ku said Malaysians planning to visit the resorts would likely stay in Johor Baru as hotel rates in the republic were too costly for average Malaysian tourists.

He said the location of KSL City in the heart of Iskandar Malaysia augured well for the company due to the influx of local and foreign investors, tourists and new residents to south Johor.

Ku said KSL did not discount that the new project would be a stepping-stone for it to further venture into the retail and hospitality segments in other parts of Malaysia.

For the financial year ended Dec 31 (FY07), KSL posted pre-tax profit of RM138.3mil on revenue of RM277.4mil compared with RM94.1mil and RM266.2mil respectively in FY06.

By The Star (by Zazali Musa)