Vogue Suites I at KL Eco City

Vogue Suites I, as the name suggests is going to be a luxury residential development at KL Eco City. Somehow, I find it rather distasteful that Malaysian developers often have no creativity whatsoever in naming their projects that they have to steal names from already successful entities.  

Secondly, the picture of Vogue Suites I in the developer's website does not give you the real impression that this is going to be a very high density project with 3 towers clustered together and a total of over 2,000 apartments. The only views you are going to get are those of your neighbours, neighbouring office units or those lucky ones will get to see the Federal Highway and the Pantai Dalam sewer treatment plant in the horizons...

If anything is going to kill our property market, this is probably the one. We are going to be flooded by apartments, especially 1 or 2-bedroom small units in 3 years time - add the few more thousand units coming in from Bangsar South!

As more and more, smaller and smaller apartments are being built, there really isn't much to talk about the floor layout any longer. Probably the design that distinguish Vogue from the rest is the sunken bathroom concept - however, they are not the 1st to think of this as back in 2008, Swiss Garden Residences at Pudu has already done this.  

Nevertheless, there are rare 1-bedroom duplex units similar to those offered by YTL at nearby Centrio Pantai Hill Park. While Centrio's duplexes are selling in sub-sale at around RM700k, Vogue's are going almost RM2million each. 

About RM2million for a duplex 2-bedroom unit, as an investment.... it's not going to make it. Even the sales people at SP Setia admit that this concept is only suited to those who have too much money and want to buy for own stay. 

But in my opinion, for short term stay it's probably OK but if KL Eco City is going to be built out similar to Midvalley, to live in a place like this is probably going to be too much.... I'm not suggesting that the density is too much but have you ever noticed that Midvalley is very much like an island - encircled but roads with high traffic. During peak hours, thousands of cars are sitting on the roads emitting dangerous gasses and off peak, they are circling the buildings like a river caught in torrential stream.  To get in an out, you need a car or wait for a taxi.... or in Eco City's case, you may also take the KTM or LRT out. But you cannot wander off on foot anywhere on your own like those apartments in Bangsar, KLCC or Bukit Bintang.

Midvalley does not have any proper foot paths for pedestrians outdoors. Any paths they have leads you into the shopping malls to spend money. It is not possible to jog around the whole complex and you can't exactly walk to neighbouring places... not that there is anywhere you can walk to which is within walking distance... Let's hope Eco City won't be like this.