Murly (right) discussing the Vertu Resort project with Kerjaya Prospek Group Bhd executive chairman Datuk Tee Eng Ho after the signing ceremony at the Aspen Vision City sales gallery in Batu Kawan, Penang.

ASPEN Vision City in Batu Kawan, Penang, is getting closer to fruition with the positive progress of multiple key developments.

Aspen Group chief executive officer Datuk M. Murly said the Vervea commercial precinct, which achieved 95% sales and bookings, was 45% completed.

“Vervea is also slated to obtain the Certificate of Completion and Compliance by the last quarter of 2018, which is also its completion date.”

At the same time, he said the earthworks for Columbia Asia Hospital and the IKEA store were already completed and both were scheduled to be ready by the last quarter of 2018.

The progress of the 10ha Central Park, he added, was right on track and the main access roads and landscaping of the entire development were being worked on.

The Vervea commercial precinct, IKEA store, Columbia Asia Hospital as well as a green lung are among the highlights of Aspen Vision City.

It is Aspen Group’s flagship joint venture development with IKEA Southeast Asia.

Aspen Vision City will house the northern region’s first IKEA store scheduled to be opened in Penang by Jan 1, 2019, along with other components including aninternational school and business hotel.

“Aspen Vision City has made a lot of progress since we started working with our joint venture partner IKEA Southeast Asia to develop this 99ha mixed scheme together in the last quarter of 2014.

“The partnership has proven to be very successful for us.

“It had spearheaded the growth of Batu Kawan during a period when not many wanted to be here.

“Now, everybody wants to be here and the partnership with IKEA has played a major role to bring about transformation,” he said after a signing ceremony at the Aspen Vision City sales gallery in Batu Kawan recently.

At the ceremony, Aspen Vision City Sdn Bhd awarded a contract amounting to RM442mil to Kerjaya Prospek (M) Sdn Bhd, which is a subsidiary company of construction outfit Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad.

The contract entrusted Kerjaya Prospek with the role as contractor for the main building works of Vertu Resort in Batu Kawan.

This includes all civil and structural, electrical and external infrastructure works.

Vertu Resort is a high-rise urban resort-inspired residential development comprising 1,246 units set for completion in the fourth quarter of 2020.

It is located 350m away from the planned IKEA store.

Murly added that Aspen had always worked with good partners.

This is shown through the appointment of Kerjaya Prospek which was named as one of five Malaysian companies in the top 200 publicly traded companies in the Asia-Pacific region on the Forbes 2017 ‘Best Under a Billion’ list.

He added that the company was constantly on the lookout for more opportunities in the Southeast Asian region including in Thailand and the Philippines.