KL Wellness City is a wellness-centric township planned to innovate the way wellness and healthcare are practised and delivered.
WELLNESS real estate is emerging as a solution to support individuals and communities to live longer, healthier and more balanced lives while benefiting developers, buyers, operators and all other stakeholders involved in the process.
Today, wellness real estate represents one of the key industries that together form the global wellness economy.
According to non-profit organisation Global Wellness Institute (GWI), wellness real estate is defined as the construction of residential and commercial/institutional properties (including office, hospital, mixed-use/multifamily, medical and leisure) that incorporate intentional wellness elements in their design, materials and building as well as their amenities, services and/or programming.
As such, integrated township KL Wellness City was built on 10.7ha of land in the vibrant neighbourhood of Bukit Jalil.
Its master developer, KL Wellness City Sdn Bhd, has carefully planned and designed the sustainable township, which was divided into seven plots of land comprising the mixed components that equally matches the definition of the wellness real estate.
“KL Wellness City fits the bill. It is a masterplan earmarked for a city which integrates the elements of residential, commercial and institutional buildings, together with medical, healthcare and wellness components.
“It is actually intentionally planned for and it is not by coincidence.
KL Wellness City emphasises on development with relation to wellness real estate, says Tiew.
“We are the only one in South-East Asia that emphasises (the development of the township) according to the definition of wellness real estate,” says KL Wellness City Sdn Bhd executive director (branding, sales and marketing) Datuk Seri Dr Vincent Tiew during an interview at KL Wellness City Gallery in Bukit Jalil.
“Even though you live in an apartment in this township, there will be availability of nursing care provided by the hospitals and medical centres in this township,” he explains.
He shares that they are also planning for construction of several other hospitals and medical centres in the township.
Under the first phase, two main buildings that are under construction are the International Tertiary Hospital and the Nobel Healthcare Park.
The hospital is a state-of-the-art facility approved as a 624-bed tertiary hospital and scalable to 1,000-bed capacity.
The Nobel Healthcare Park will consist of medical, wellness, retail and business suites.
The construction of these two buildings which started at the end of last year are expected to be completed by the end of 2025 and targeted for opening in 2026.
Elaborating on the medical suites, Tiew said these facilities will allow specialist doctors and healthcare entities such as pharmaceutical companies the opportunity to privately own the clinics.
“Such opportunities to privately own the medical suites are very rare in Malaysia, because currently specialist doctors don’t have the chance to buy or own the clinics in private hospitals, unlike in Singapore and Hong Kong,” he shares.
The developer is planning to build 379 medical suites and its opening will be done in phases. So far, there has been 75% take-up for medical suites under Phase 1.
Among the benefits of ownership or practice of medical suites in the Nobel Healthcare Park, he says, are having a mini pharmacy in their own clinics to generate more revenue, allowing cash flow and financial planning for specialist doctors.
“Specialist doctors can also build their own business legacy because they can operate their clinics with their partner doctors. They can expand their clinical service. They will also have an opportunity to operate the clinic with their partner and give more time flexibility and have freedom to do other business and family commitments.
“They will also have the opportunity to corporatise practice. They can merge with a bigger group and monetise their clinic practice and enjoy capital markets such as initial public offering,” he elaborates.
On the wellness suites, he says: “It is like hotel rooms, fully furnished and designed with wellness and healthcare elements.
“The wellness suites are purposely, intentionally and carefully designed to meet the needs and demands of healthcare travellers that comes to the International Tertiary Hospital.”
Additionally, he points out that patients, from outstation or overseas, would look for the most convenient accommodation to stay when they seek treatment at the hospital.
“Moreover, the patients will need a place for rehabilitation and recovery after the surgery and the most convenient place will be the wellness suites which are next to the hospital.
“The patients’ family members and loved ones also need a place to stay, and they can stay conveniently at these wellness suites and be easily accessible there,” he says.
There will be 512 wellness suites to be specially built for the short-term stay of patients and their families, travellers, visitors and others. The two types of wellness suites ranging between 268 sq ft and 386 sq ft are priced from RM355,000 onwards.
The suites’ key features would allow patients to have peace of mind during the stay, adding that the building design and features are also patient-friendly and complied with the Health Ministry guidelines.
Smart investment
On the 6m-high retail suites, he says: “Anyone who invests to buy or open up or rent a retail suite, it will be like operating their shop at the ground floor of the hospital. It will be very conducive, modern and allows more flexibility and usages of the space.”
There will also be MSC business suites in the Nobel Healthcare Park.
The township also comes with a dedicated jogging, walking and cycling track and a 0.5ha central park.
Among others, there will be independent living with wellness elements, serviced apartments (health and fitness-focused lifestyle residences), healthcare hub (lifestyle and healthcare retail with proposed top leading oncology centre), as well as a direct link bridge from the Nobel Healthcare Park to the international hospital, which are planned for the township.
Tiew shares that the construction of the township was smart investment because of good return on investment.
“It is purpose built and it benefits from the strong medical tourism industry.
He explains that the medical and healthcare industry is promising as “Malaysia is No.1 globally in medical tourism.
“Your property investments or type of asset class or investments should be focused in the right industry.”
Additionally, he says that the compounded annual growth rate of medical tourism is 16.3% between 2015 and 2019.
“This is highly potential. This means that Malaysia and whichever countries that enjoy strong medical tourism and healthcare positioning will continue to enjoy double-digit growth.”
He shares that Malaysia would be able to continue to be among the best medical healthcare providers in the world because of “our medical fees and treatment is one of the cheapest in the world – cheaper than in Singapore and Thailand.
“Our number of expertise and level of expertise is very highly regarded in the world. Some of our disciplines have better doctors than in the region, while our medical facilities and centres are also among the best.
“More than 30% of specialist doctors in Singapore are from Malaysia. We will be able to continue to enhance and strengthen our position,” he says.
Besides this, he highlights that GWI reports have shown that from 2017 to 2020, the global market for the wellness industry grew by an average of 22% annually, from US$148bil in 2017 to US$225bil in 2019, and then to US$275bil in 2020. After two years of the epidemic, the market growth rate of the healthcare industry has almost doubled.
Citing GWI reports further, he adds that: “The global wellness economy was valued at US$4.9 trillion in 2019.
“As we emerge from the pandemic, GWI predicts that the wellness economy will return to its robust growth and projects 9.9% average annual growth, with the wellness economy reaching nearly US$7 trillion in 2025. The wellness economy also represented 5.1% of global economic output in 2020.
“From 2017 to 2020, Japan’s wellness real estate market grew by 360% while Canada grew by 240%.”
He points out that wellness real estate has maintained the highest growth rate in the wellness economy both before and during the pandemic.
He says that the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the growing understanding among consumers and the building industry about the critical role that external environments play in our physical and mental health and well-being.
In addition, he says the country’s ageing population (those aged 65 years and above) was expected to exceed 15% by 2030, which poses a lot of good potentials and needs for healthcare and medical care for senior people living.
For the township, among others, Tiew says that the wellness suites are projected to generate a gross yield of double-digit for investors.
He explains that it is known that Airbnb and short-term stay surrounding hospitals have high occupancy and high rental rates not only in the Klang Valley.
“This becomes a very attractive asset class for investors because of its price and as it is built adjoining the large-scale international tertiary hospital. The international tertiary hospital is poised to be one of the top leading medical tourism hospitals in the South-East Asia region.”
KL Wellness City is just 300m across lifestyle mall Pavilion Bukit Jalil and is accessible through seven highways such as North-South Expressway, Silk Highway and Besraya Highway, as well as LRT stations.
For more information, call 03-8090 7778 or go to www.klwellnesscity.com
