For as long as anyone in Singapore's property market can remember, the East Coast has been the side of the island that people talk about with a particular kind of affection. The laksa. The satay by the sea. The cycling paths through East Coast Park. The weekend barbecues and the sunrise jogs and the sense, shared by residents from Katong to Bedok, that living east is not merely a geographical choice but a lifestyle identity.

What the East Coast has not had, for a remarkably long time, is a new private condominium launch in the Bayshore precinct. The last significant development in the area — Costa Del Sol — was completed in 2004. In the two decades since, Singapore has built entire new towns, opened multiple MRT lines and transformed districts from Punggol to Tengah. Bayshore, meanwhile, waited.

That wait is ending. Vela Bay, a 515-unit residential development by SingHaiyi, is set to become the inaugural private launch in what the Urban Redevelopment Authority has designated as one of Singapore's most ambitious new precincts — a 60-hectare waterfront neighbourhood that will eventually house an estimated 12,500 homes, served by two Thomson–East Coast Line stations and designed around the kind of car-lite, green-corridor urban planning that the government has been refining since Tengah.

For buyers and investors who have been watching Bayshore's transformation from a distance, the question is no longer whether the precinct will develop. It is whether the first project through the door offers a compelling enough proposition to justify moving early.

The Land Bid That Turned Heads

The Bayshore Road Government Land Sales site attracted eight bids when it went to tender in March 2025. SingHaiyi's winning offer of $1,388 per square foot per plot ratio — $658.9 million in total — was not just the highest bid. It was a statement of intent, one that analysts noted exceeded recent benchmarks in both the Rest of Central Region and Core Central Region.

Eight bidders for a single site in a precinct with no existing private housing stock tells you something about developer confidence. The parallel most frequently drawn by industry observers is to Parktown Residence in Tampines North, another first-mover integrated project in a nascent township that sold 87 per cent of its units on launch weekend. The logic is straightforward: in transformation zones, the first well-located private development tends to set the pricing benchmark for everything that follows.

For Vela Bay, the numbers are being closely watched. Industry analysts project launch prices in the range of S$2,500 to S$2,700 per square foot at entry level, with averages potentially exceeding S$2,800 depending on finishes and unit positioning. In a market where OCR private housing stock is at one of its lowest points in a decade, those projections have done nothing to dampen interest.

Location as Infrastructure

The Bayshore precinct's transformation is not cosmetic. It is infrastructural, which is a fundamentally different proposition for property values. The Thomson–East Coast Line, when fully operational, will run from the northern border of Singapore down through Orchard Road, the Central Business District and Marina Bay before continuing eastward to Bayshore and onward to Changi Airport via a planned extension.

Bayshore MRT station, already completed in 2024, sits adjacent to the Vela Bay site. Bedok South station, due to open later in 2026, will anchor the second major GLS parcel in the precinct — a 1,280-unit integrated development with commercial and retail components. Together, these two stations transform Bayshore from what was, until recently, a largely undeveloped stretch of reclaimed land into a transit-oriented neighbourhood with direct rail access to the city centre in under 20 minutes.

For drivers, the East Coast Parkway and Marina Coastal Expressway provide the kind of arterial connectivity that East Coast residents have long relied upon. But the addition of the TEL changes the calculus for a generation of buyers who increasingly prioritise public transport accessibility over car ownership — particularly given that Bayshore has been designated as a car-lite precinct, with dedicated cycling networks connecting to the Round Island Route and East Coast Park.

What the Precinct Will Become

Understanding Vela Bay requires understanding Bayshore not as it is today — a construction zone flanked by expressways and parkland — but as it will be in five to ten years. The URA Master Plan envisions a fully integrated waterfront district with green corridors, walking trails, neighbourhood retail, community amenities and direct access to East Coast Park and the planned Long Island coastal development.

Long Island, a major land reclamation project stretching approximately 20 kilometres along Singapore's southern and eastern shoreline, will create new recreational waterfront space while addressing rising sea levels. For Bayshore residents, this translates into an extended coastline with parkland, cycling paths and lifestyle amenities that do not currently exist.

The precinct will also feature sustainable design elements — solar panels, pneumatic waste systems, wind-flow-optimised building orientations — consistent with the government's broader push toward environmentally responsive town planning. Buyers considering the Vela Bay Showflat when it opens will be evaluating not just the development itself but the trajectory of the entire district around it.

The Developer's Track Record

SingHaiyi is not new to Singapore's residential market. The group has built its portfolio through a disciplined approach to site selection and value creation, focusing on well-located parcels where planning support and infrastructure investment provide long-term tailwinds. The Bayshore site fits this philosophy precisely — a first-mover opportunity in a precinct backed by government transformation plans, MRT connectivity and a structural shortage of private housing supply in District 16.

The development comprises 515 units designed to serve a range of buyer profiles, from young professionals and couples to families and long-term investors. The emphasis, according to the developer, is on functional layouts, curated communal spaces and an architectural language that responds to the coastal setting without retreating into resort-style cliché.

For prospective buyers seeking detailed specifications, the Vela Bay Brochure and floor plans are expected to be available ahead of the launch, with showflat appointments accessible through the project's website.

The Investment Case

The investment thesis for Vela Bay rests on several converging factors. District 16 private home prices increased by approximately 30 per cent between 2020 and late 2024, broadly in line with OCR-wide appreciation. The Bayshore precinct's Land Betterment Charge — an indicator of government-assessed land value — saw a 15.4 per cent increase in the most recent revision, the sharpest jump recorded island-wide and a direct reflection of the GLS bid premium.

The absence of competing private supply in the immediate vicinity creates a scarcity dynamic that first-mover projects have historically exploited well. Watertown in Punggol, frequently cited as the closest precedent, benefited from being the first integrated development in a precinct that had limited retail amenities at launch. The subsequent development of Waterway Point shopping centre and surrounding infrastructure validated early buyers' bets.

Bayshore's trajectory is expected to follow a similar arc, with precinct-wide amenities materialising progressively over the next eight to twelve years. For buyers comfortable with that horizon, the early-stage pricing of a first launch typically offers the widest margin between entry price and eventual district benchmark.

Rental demand is another consideration. With Bayshore MRT providing direct connectivity to employment hubs and the planned Changi Airport Terminal 5 extension adding further economic gravity to the east, landlords in the precinct are expected to benefit from a growing pool of tenants — both local professionals and expatriates — drawn to the combination of coastal amenity and city accessibility.

The View From Here

There is an inherent tension in buying into a transformation zone. You are purchasing a vision as much as a property — betting that the masterplan will be executed, that the infrastructure will arrive on schedule, and that the neighbourhood will mature into something that justifies the premium of being early. Singapore's track record on urban delivery is among the strongest in the world, but the timeline for full precinct build-out in Bayshore is measured in years, not months.

What Vela Bay offers is a position at the front of that queue. The MRT station is built. The TEL is operational. The cycling networks and green corridors are in planning. The second GLS site is on the confirmed list. The trajectory is not speculative — it is budgeted, tendered and under way.

For buyers who have spent years watching the East Coast from the outside, waiting for the right entry point into a district that has been underserved by new private supply since the early 2000s, the arithmetic is becoming difficult to ignore. The east side of Singapore has always had the lifestyle. Now, for the first time in a generation, it has the new homes to match.