Since the sales gallery of Generations @ Tannery opened for preview on July 1, Daniel Long and Terrance Tan — managing partners of Providence Estates, developer of the upcoming industrial project — have been there every day. Long even took to sweeping the floors himself, determined to keep the space gleaming like a luxury car showroom.

"We had to stop him from vacuuming," says Josias Ding, manager of special projects at Providence Estates. The gallery opening marked the start of a two-week preview ahead of the project's official launch on July 17.

For Long, it's because the freehold light industrial (Business 1) project "is very special to us".

The 12-storey, freehold Generations @ Tannery, situated at 71 Tannery Lane, is a redevelopment of listed property giant City Developments Ltd's 11-storey City Industrial Building, built in 1976 during Singapore's flatted factory boom. From the outset, Providence Estates — helmed by Long and Tan — did not want the project to resemble a conventional industrial block, and Long felt it was important for buyers to understand the location's history.

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Tannery to 'Towkays'

The names Tannery Lane and the adjacent Tannery Road were derived from the traditional tanneries that treated animal hides and processed them into leather. These tanneries were among the small-scale industries clustered near the Geylang River in the 1950s.

"A visitor to our gallery told us that the whole area — Tannery Lane and Tannery Road — used to be very smelly, and no one wanted to come here in the past," says Long.

The stench came from the traditional tanning process, in which raw hides were soaked in a mixture of cow urine, pigeon droppings, quicklime and salt to strip and soften them, then transferred into vats of natural plant dyes such as saffron, indigo and henna. The softening and dyeing together produced a pungent, ammonia-heavy odour. "That's why if you visit the oldest leather tannery in Fez, Morocco, they give visitors a sprig of fresh mint to hold under their nose to combat the smell," says Long.

Over the decades, the area near Geylang River, including MacPherson industrial estate, shifted away from leather-making toward light industrial or B1 activities. That pungent past is long gone — today, the area draws a very different kind of industrial appeal.

'Grade-A B1 industrial building'

Sammi Lim, founder and executive director of Brilliance Capital, and her team have been at the sales gallery nearly every day with prospective buyers who have made appointments to view the project.

"The preview response has exceeded our expectations, particularly considering the developer adopted a relatively measured marketing approach," says Lim.

Read also: Providence Capital eyes community-led industrial play at freehold Generations @ Tannery

Despite that, the sales gallery was "packed" during the first two days of the preview, she adds. "More importantly, we are seeing genuine buying interest rather than casual footfall."

According to Lim, prospective buyers are "a healthy mix of owner-occupiers and investors". Many of them are business owners and SMEs looking to secure freehold premises for their own operations. Meanwhile, investors are attracted by the scarcity of new, freehold industrial developments, the project's city-fringe location, and long-term capital preservation potential, she notes.

The appetite for freehold industrial space has been evident elsewhere in the market too. Nearby in MacPherson, Chiu Teng Group's CT Gold — a freehold, strata-titled B1 development — saw all 63 production units and three canteens snapped up within two days of its launch, with the project fully sold out as of May 1.

"We have already started collecting cheques [at Generations @ Tannery] as expressions of interest during this preview period, which reflects the level of commitment from prospective buyers," Lim adds.

Over the past week, those who have viewed the project have consistently remarked that it's a "Grade-A B1" offering, given the project's specifications, observes Lim. She points to the generously sized driveway, drop-off, and lobby, with travertine-like walls resembling those of a Grade-A office lobby. There are also six high-capacity lifts that can accommodate up to 33 people and serve all floors.

In fact, the developer had set aside about 5% of the saleable area to make way for these amenities, adds Providence Estates' Tan.

Read also: Freehold commercial/institution redevelopment plots in Geylang for sale at $31 mil

Flexibility by design

Generations @ Tannery has 54 strata-titled production units on the upper floors, ranging in size from 1,658 to 2,695 sq ft. Each floorplate of about 20,000 sq ft accommodates up to 10 production units on the higher floors.

Many units feature double-volume ceiling heights of up to 6.125m, giving occupiers the flexibility to add a mezzanine level, notes Providence Estates' Tan.

A faith-based organisation has reserved the top four floors — from the ninth to the 12th floors. Counting each reserved floor as a single unit, PropNex Realty's project lead for the development, Ioannes Koh, notes that only 50 units are now available for sale across the second to eighth floors.

"With just 50 units available, every unit is precious," says PropNex's Koh.

Dual-key, private lifts and Towkay units

Fourteen of the production units are dual-key and come equipped with two toilets, allowing owners to subdivide the unit — one portion for their own use, the other to lease out. These prospective buyers are "end-users looking at an investment angle too", says Koh.

Three production units come with private lift access, limited to one unit each on the sixth, seventh and eighth floors.

On the second level are three units which Providence Estates' Long calls "Towkay" (meaning 'boss') units, so named for their direct vehicular access at the unit frontage. Two of the three also come with the dual-key option, and all three enjoy the 6.125m floor-to-floor height.

The dual-key Towkay units have generated significant interest from business owners who appreciate the flexibility of separating their operational and office functions within a single unit, says Tan Hong Boon, founder and executive director of AlpsEdge Real Estate. The standard industrial units continue to appeal to both owner-occupiers and investors seeking efficient, functional layouts.

For industrial developments, the most premium units are typically those on the first or second levels — hence the roughly $2,000 psf price tag for the three exclusive Towkay units on the second level, with starting prices from $2.6 million. Prices for units on the higher floors start from upwards of $1,500 psf for an eighth-floor unit, says Long.

Canteens and the residents across the road

In addition to the production units, there are five canteen units on the first floor, all available for sale. "These units are especially popular with prospective buyers," says AlpsEdge's Tan Hong Boon.

The smallest canteen is under 500 sq ft, notes PropNex's Koh, and it is the most popular as it's a corner unit closest to the main entrance. Based on indicative pricing of $3,000 to $4,000 psf, he estimates the 463 sq ft unit's absolute price at $1.4 million to $1.85 million. "At this price level, it's still very affordable," he says.

Tan of AlpsEdge also attributes interest in the canteens to the wave of upcoming HDB Build-to-Order (BTO) projects near the Mattar Road MRT Station on the Downtown Line. Construction is underway at the site of the 443-unit Merpati Alcove, launched in the October 2024 BTO exercise. Another 440-unit BTO project is slated for launch in the nearby Geylang-Merpati area this coming October.

With new residential developments coming up in the vicinity, prospective buyers see these units as "well-positioned" to benefit from the growing residential population, supplementing the existing industrial workforce in the area, notes Tan.

Providence Estates also envisions the project as a hub where startups, media firms, co-working operators, creative studios, e-commerce companies, logistics operations, call centres, AV production houses, and social or faith-based enterprises can coexist in the same building — all in line with B1 industrial guidelines.

"The whole idea of building a community within [the building], and a community without, is becoming a reality by the time Generations @ Tannery is completed in 2029," says Long.

In the meantime, in the lead-up to the July 17 launch, Long can still be found sweeping the sales gallery daily, determined to keep it as spotless as the day it opened.