BANK Kerjasama Rakyat Malaysia Bhd (Bank Rakyat) says the cost to build its new headquarters at Jalan Travers, Kuala Lumpur, has risen to RM500-odd million as more work is involved.
The country's largest Islamic cooperative bank is undertaking a twin-tower development on 1.5ha directly across from Mercu UEM, which is housed at Kuala Lumpur Sentral in Brickfields.
It bought the land for RM43 million in 2006.
The project, dubbed Bank Rakyat Twin Towers, was initially estimated to cost RM460 mil-lion.
It comprises a 38-storey and a 32-storey office tower.
A bank spokesperson said that the new scope of work includes enhancing the building's facilities to MSC Cyber Centre status and adding green features to meet the Green Building Index (GBI) certification.
Bank Rakyat awarded the main contract to little-known KaSUGI Prima Sdn Bhd, which has started substructure works.
The spokesperson said that given the progress and variations which had inadvertently caused delays, the project is now scheduled to be completed by June 2012 instead of next year.
The delays were caused on the whole by a change of project component in one of the towers.
"We had wanted to construct a serviced apartment block, but later decided to change it to a second office tower (because of demand)," he said.
He also said that there was a delay in securing the development order.
The twin towers will have 1.8 million sq ft built-up and are expected to improve the bank's efficiency upon completion.
At the moment, Bank Rakyat will occupy one block, the main tower, using it as its new headquarters.
The employees at its current headquarters and some of its branches in Kuala Lumpur will move to the new building.
The spokesperson said the bank has no immediate plans to sell the existing headquarters.
The building will be leased to interested parties, he said.
"It is a prime asset. We will hold on to it."
He said the second tower will be sold to a subsidiary for some RM200 million to RM250 million, which will eventually lease the excess space to potential tenants for recurring income.
By Sharen Kaur
Business Times
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