Chart of the Day: Look at this massive jump in available commercial space by 2H14

Is this in preparation for something big?

It looks like Singapore is preparing its eastern part to be the new office hub as the available commercial space rocketed 82% to 352,140 sqm.

According to Barclays, the commercial space that will be made available jumped 82% h/h and 31% y/y to 352,140sqm, with space in the Confirmed List up 30-fold comprising mainly a site that will be linked to the Paya Lebar MRT station and interchange which will have 132,000sqm of GFA. 

Here's more from Barclays:

We estimate at least half of it could be office space (500-600ksqft NLA of office). 

This will facilitate the development of Paya Lebar Central into a decentralised regional hub in the eastern part of Singapore, about 15 minutes from the city centre. 

For the Reserve List, a site at Beach Road of 89,880sqm GFA in the CBD was added for 2H14.

The potentially massive 101,400sqm GFA White Site at Marina View/Union Street which has been available since Oct 2011 but not triggered for sale was carried over into 2H14, but the sale conditions have been imposed to disallow strata subdivision of office space for future development.

We believe that as the prime office market continues to improve, the White Site at Marina View could be triggered for sale.

However, currently with the Marina One (1.88mn sqft NLA) completing in late 2016 to early 2017, we expect developers might still be cautious.

We are positive on the prime office sector in the near term given the vacuum in new CBD office space in 2015.