IOI Resort City has been gradually developed over the years and transformed as a self-sustainable township in Southern Klang Valley. The execution strategy of developer is spot on by combining leisure, residential and commercial elements in a right sequence to ensure the township doesn’t becomes a concrete jungle or an overly quiet residential township. Instead, by its name of Resort City, the developer crafted the master plan to uniquely build a greenery leisure township that no other similar township to compare with. You have golf course, regional mall, branded hotels, residential and commercial properties, grade A office towers, rehabilitation center, and large wet lands all under one developer and one integrated township. Seriously, where else?
With the success of its regional shopping mall in IOI Resort City, the developer continues to build up its IOI City Mall’s retail space which the Phase 2 (21 acres with additional NLA 1 million sqft) target to complete by the end of 2021. You will see the new element of sport center, convention hall, new hotels and state-of-art office towers in the coming phase. To recap, IOI Properties has launched many different types of commercial and residential developments which was meant to develop the sustainability system of the township. The modern retail properties and office shops linked to Conezion residential project allowed different operators and commercial activities to complement the mall and cater other necessary services for residents in this township. After few residential developments at this East part of the township, the developer is now focusing on another end of IOI Resort City, with the latest development called Gems Residences.
Gems Residences – Wellness Living Ecosystem
What excites PROPCAFE the most about this latest development is how the developer curates the new way of living for Gems’ residents. IOI Properties shared their study on the common health & living constrains for us to understand the other important needs of owning a property, not just the brick-and-mortar building. It may sound a bit confusing to you now, let PROPCAFE walk you through the concept of “Wellness Living” in this article, you will then know that buying a house is no longer just about the location and the quality of property, but the specific “customised” unit design, facilities and services that come to your actual needs with an ultimate change of behaviour for a healthy living. It Is all about the whole eco-system.
“ Wellness is an active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life. A wellness living needs an environment to encourage movement, active lifestyle, mind-body health, and improve mental/psychological well-being.”
To achieve the above, IOI Properties developed Gems Residences, which will be built to support the holistic health of residents who are in different life stages i.e. Working Adults, Seniors and Children & Teenagers. Let’s continue to see how Gems Residences can fulfil the residents’ wellness living lifestyle.
Wellness Concierge
The developer has linked up with a health service provider – Managedcare to serve the residents with its wellness and specific health cares. The wellness concierge, located at the club house, will be part of the residential facility and manned by a trained nurse/paramedic on daily basis (Monday to Friday) to provide the healthcare services for all residents.
In-house Wellness Concierge Station
All residents of Gems Residences will be living through a care of professional paramedic. The station will track the residents’ health record using a health passport. It is not only about the daily check of the key body vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and etc), it is important for elderly to spend quality time by sharing with the dedicated friendly medic personnel and receiving both physical and mental health care. As a father of two children, it is nice to know that there won’t be any more panic moment from me to react an unexpected accident on our loved one. Priceless!
The working adults will have a total peace of mind to leave their seniors at home by knowing that the paramedic/nurse are at the door steps, in any emergency situation. On request basis (Ala Carte Service), chiropractic, therapeutic massage, dietetic programme, home care/nursing, rehabilitation session, house call doctor, regular check-in home visit, post-surgery care and a long list of services can be arranged for children, adults and seniors.
Mental Support
Everyone can be stressed up in many ways, from school/exam, relationship, financial burden, family matters and etc. Managecare service is there to “de-stress” the residents with its services of counselling, personal advisory on advance care, estate and financial planning, or insurance.
Medical Care Cluster
Gems Residences has the geographical advantage of being neighbouring the medical industry cluster. There are two hospitals (Serdang and Putrajaya) and a rehabilitation centre (Daehan commenced operations at IOI Two Square, IOI Resort City recently). By knowing the amenities and assistance are just a call away and paramedic supports can be at your doorsteps within minutes, it helps the working adults and senior to have a total “peace” of mind living in the Gems Residences.
Nature and Greenery
Gems Residences is perfectly located within a township that is surrounded by the green lungs and golf course. Although It is away from the busy and polluted city centre, the location of IOI Resort City still comes with great accessibility to all different parts of Klang Valley.
Gems Residences’ lush greenery and gorgeous view.
Find out the view of your unit below!
1. View towards Wetland and Low Density Bungalow
2. View towards Putrajaya Wetland Park
3. View toward Green Lung and Wetland at Precinct 13
4. View towards Green Lung
5. View towards IOI City Mall
Besides the green lungs, the allocation of 24% green area and landscape in the facilities floor of the building clearly shows the developer’s strong intend to build a wellness sanctuary home. This is exactly what you need to have for your wellness living – Step 1 “Get the environment right”!
Why developer introduces the Wellness Living in Gems Residences?
Modern Living Health Risk ~
“Working adults and children are constantly under daily pressure in their own space that create modern mental health issue. One needs a place with green and peace of mind”
Many high-density projects (with the plan of few thousand units) were offered in the market last few years, due to scarcity of land in city centre. Although the response was overwhelming, credit to the affordable pricing, buyers seems to forget about the degradation of environment. Places that are encircled by concrete jungles, congestion and high human traffic are not the ideal environment for someone who wants proper wellness living.
In contrast, Gems Residences is overlooking Malaysia largest freshwater wetland, parks and low density bungalows land. It is important to highlight that half of the development in Gems Residences are low rise buildings. A total of 676 units of residences are sitting on a large 9.65 acres freehold land (with residential title) translates to a relatively low-density environment, of only 70 unit per acre.
The number of towers may seem a lot (looking at the scale models), however the number of units in each block is rather low. 40 to 60 units in low-rise building and 100 to 140 units in high-rise is a luxury in today’s standard. Phase 1 has been open for sale and phase 2 is now open for registration, and target to complete together in year 2023.
Phase 1:
334 units in four towers (Gems Sapphire 5: A Low-rise 16-storey – 56 units; Gems Sapphire 6: Low-rise 13-storey – 44 units; Gems Citrine 1: high-rise 34-storey – 123 units; Gems Citrine 2: high-rise 30 -storey – 111 units)
Phase 2:
342 units in four towers (Gems Sapphire 7: Low-rise 11-storey – 36 units; Gems Sapphire 8: Low-rise 12-storey – 58 units; high-rise Gems Citrine 3: 23-storey 109 units; Gems Citrine 4: high-rise 29-storey – 139 units)
Social Isolation and Inactive Lifestyle
“The city folks are always guilty on its sedentary lifestyle which lack of physical activities. With the time constraint and busy schedule, social network is getting smaller by days. Together with poor diet and stress, chronic illness becomes the greatest regret to the majority of the hardworking citizen.”
Gems Residences placed substantial focus on creating many shared spaces at the 3 acres facilities (level 5 podium floor and multi-storey clubhouse) for residents. An active lifestyle first needs the existence of “hardware” to have sufficient space for activities. In opposite, the last thing you want is to commute again from home to other clubs or activity space. Without the hassle to travel, the Gems Residence provides the wooden deck for yoga activities, hammock garden and lawn area as an open space for kids to interact, tree house for parents and children to mingle around, and viewing deck to encourage conversation with friends and family members. How about a well-equipped gym, Olympics sized pool, tennis courts and jogging track? No reason for not to be active again!
IOI Properties, different from its previous projects, emphasized a lot of its club house to further support the importance of “face-to-face” interaction between residents and friends through the facilities like large multipurpose hall, chill & dining lounge, mahjong and table games corner and tea lounge. The kids will be given the secured space at the exploratory lab and reading lounge.
The ideal home and lifestyle for children, working adults and seniors.
“Even a “safe” environment is no longer enough to children nowadays due to the kid and teenagers’ structural change of behaviour after the invasion of personal digital device. The isolated lifestyle, anxiety and depression, and illness due to lack of active movement are becoming the critical emerging health issue to the children.”
“Working adults and family members are easily prompted to daily stress from long traveling, financial burden, chores, and commitments. Dual income family always have lack of time and knowledge to take care of the elderly at home.”
“Seniors are always facing the issue of unfit living environment, smaller social network and mobility when age is catching up.”
While the “hardware” can be easily built to tackle many issues above, most of the developments fail in the “software” part, without completing the full equation of wellness living. IOI Properties clearly recognised it and with this in mind, the developer designed an integrated solution of having medical concierge services into the offering of Gems Residences.
“ Being healthy and happy is different things. Human need to be connected and add more colors to life” – Community Living & Programme
Is it sufficient? Healthy living is more than this! It is crucial to live in a community to connect with people in your living environment. Well, the developer is creating more than just an environment and necessary key services to residents, there will be a community programme to complete the dots for residents’ wellness living lifestyle. Seniors deserve to continue enjoying the colourful retirement life and live independently. Children should continue to mingle with friends and share their interests, and working adults should not have an excuse to avoid activities.
In line with the efforts to build social connection and a friendly community, social activities (eg. Networking events, recreational outings/tours, community activities) will be organized occasionally. IOI Properties is also in discussion to collaborate with Universiti of Putra Malaysia to design the “University of Third Age” skills Programme, which will introduce enrichment classes (photography, arts, baking), support groups, coaching session, and etc. Somehow, wouldn’t these activities help you feel younger and bring you back to those good old days as a student? Life will never be boring and goalless again!
Universal Design Homes with Different Unique Offerings
Living Assistance Features
Gems Residences (Phase 1 and Phase 2) offer a total of 109 living assistance units.
These “special assisted living units” – Phase 1 Type A1(G) (1249sf), Type A3(G) (1249sf), Type B2(G) (1475sf) and Phase 2 Type A(G) and B(G) both 980sf are the ideal units for families with senior citizens as it comes with the living assistance features e.g. sliding door (master bedroom and bathroom), panic button, grab bars and ramp in the bathroom for easier accessibility.
Direct Access to Parking Bay
The developer has also very carefully designed the floor plan to allow certain units to have direct access to their designated parking bays (see the color boxed-up at one of the car park floors below) from their unit. These units are allocated at 1st to 3rd floor to help the residents who have the mobility concern or purely like the convenience of living in a landed property.
Minimum Two Parking Bays and Direct Ramp
All units come with at least two parking lots. If you need more parking bays, check out some of the units in the low-rise Sapphire towers.
Direct Access to Environment Deck
For those who use the facilities often and love the landscape of the building can explore the units located at the 5th floor of the building.
Private Lift Lobby
Shuttle Service
As far as we can gathered, there will be weekly chauffeured trip provided to residents for grocery shopping. There is not much detail information at this premature stage about the chauffeured trip, however having this will definitely improve the connectivity especially to the existing shuttle service at IOI City Mall.
Talking about the latest shuttle service to and from IOI City Mall, just a quick update on the routes, pick up and drop-off points, refer to the table below.
Flooring Material Choice
Depending on individual preference or needs, residents are given the choice of selecting the flooring material between laminated timber and porcelain tiles.
Property Layout & Pricing
There are many variations in term of layout size, mainly it can break down into the following:
Phase 1:
Citrine 1 & 2 – Type A1 (1259sf, 3Beds; 2 Baths), A2 (1259sf, 3 Beds; 2 Baths), B1 (1453sf, 4 Beds; 3 Baths), B2 (1453sf, 4 Beds; 3 Baths). Pricing starts from RM800k+ to 870k+.
Sapphire 5 & 6 – Type A1 (Geriatric 1249sf, 2 Beds; 2 Baths), A3 (Geriatric 1249sf, 2 Beds + Study; 2 Baths), B2 (Geriatric 1475sf, 3 Beds + Study; 2 Baths), C (1690sf, 4 Beds + Utility; 5 Baths). Pricing starts from RM850k+ to RM970k+)
Type A1 – 1259sf, 3Beds; 2 Baths
All necessary “sections” for an ideal home are included in this layout. From balcony, yard, kitchen, and walk-in wardrobe. It is good to see all bedrooms are attached with wide windows I.e. allow good natural daylight flow into the unit, and a space that is just nice for a walk-in wardrobe. The horizon layout of dining and living is our favourite as it will tend to maximise the visual space when the residents look out the view at the unit. The down side is the odd shape private lift lobby. However, it can be “settled” by the right interior design given its relatively large space there.
Type B1 – 1453sf, 4 Beds; 3 Baths
This is PROPCAFE’s favourite layout. It has everything that we need and want. The squarish and rectangle areas in all “sections” of this layout will make the furnishing arrangement easy and create extra space (neat and wide) within the unit. It comes with a wet and dry kitchen. Surely, the lookout from the dry kitchen island toward the dining, living and external scenery view will be the focal point of this unit. There is no daylight issue as three bedrooms come with full wide windows and even the 4th small bedroom is attached with the corner window. Basically, this is near to perfect for the size of 1400+sf unit.
Type C – 1690sf, 4 Beds + Utility; 5 Baths
This layout, again, is based on horizontal space design. It tried to optimise the view of the unit to arrange all key sections horizontally. All four bedrooms will get great daylight from the wide windows. The tricky part is on the wet kitchen due to the odd shape. If one moves the fridge to dry kitchen, the full kitchen cabinet at one end of the wet kitchen should be sufficient and make the space in the kitchen more comfortable.
Phase 2 (Currently Open for Registration)
Citrine 3 & Citrine 4 – Type A, B,B1 (969sf; 3beds; 2 baths), Type C (1076sf; 3beds; 2 baths – Dual Keys). Pricing starts from approx. 700k to 760k
Sapphire 7 – Type A(G), B(G) (980sf; 2bed; 2baths), Type C (1076sf; 3beds; 2 baths – Dual Keys). Pricing starts from approx. 740k to 760k
Sapphire 8 – Type A, A1 (969sf; 3 beds; 2 baths), Type B(G) (980sf; 2beds; 2 baths), Type C (1076sf; 3 beds; 2baths -Dual Key). Pricing starts from approx. 700k to 760k.
In general, Phase 2 offers smaller units than Phase 1 and the unique offering will be the dual-key units. With relative cheaper absolute price, Phase 2 units will come with less windows due to the slightly compact layout.
Type A, A1 & B (969sf) – 3 Beds and 2 Bathrooms
This size is meant for small family who have limited budget but still needs 3 rooms set up. The segregation of kitchen should work well for those who like heavy duty asian cooking and all rooms are in reasonable size. With the size less than 1000sf, it still comes with a yard which is considered a big plus. In short, it is a pretty functional standard layout.
Type A(G) and B(G) – (980sf) 2 Bedrooms; 2 Bathrooms
The layout is similar to the earlier type A except that it is 2 bedrooms unit, it is a specially designed unit with living assistance features. To ensure the mobility within the unit, the developer takes down the bedroom 3 to make the open space (study). You may also notice there is no wall to segregate the kitchen. Therefore, this unit will look much spacious in common area that allow the owner plays around the space to fit their own lifestyle. We particularly like this as the study can be transformed as dining area and create horizontal open layout with more internal visual space.
Type C (1076sf) 3 bedrooms; 2 bathrooms (Dual Key feature)
The developer provided this layout to cater for specific group of families who like to have privacy within the family members. The junior master room can be used as hotel room. To make it a totally functional studio, it needs some restructuring to set up a small cabinet (see the black box in the photo) to cater for small pantry and washer area which need to connect the water via the bathroom.
Freebies and Show Rooms
Buyers will get the kitchen cabinet with hood and hob, wardrobe to 3 bedrooms, digital lockset at main door, additional fittings to assisted living units, hot water storage/instant heaters, and shower screens.
Show Rooms for Type A1(G) and C1 (slide show – see the appendix)
Prospect of Gems Residences
Let’s be honest and ask yourself these questions. Would you like to stay with your family or at the old folks/nursing home or alone at luxury senior’s village when you are aged? Given a choice, do you think children like to send their parent to these places? Would you want to have an active living lifestyle and direct health care for your loved ones and yourself at “home”? The answers are obvious for majority of us! Family members should always live healthy together!
IOI Properties recognised these needs and demand for a universal home that blends with unique features and in-house care services for the growing wellness conscious buyers. This is certainly one of the rare properties in town to offer such living lifestyle. With the existing amenities and conveniences of township, this product should be rated as one of the best for this segment. Unlike some developments that focus on Senior living, Gems Residences is for all generations and building both the “hardware” and “software (services)” for residents to tackle the inherit health risk and concerns for their family members. The needs are there, so we opined that the demand will surely grow in future. PROPCAFE foresee the wellness living will likely be the ultimate lifestyle for all in coming years!
PROPCAFE have to say that the competitive advantage of Gems Residences is the “software” that comes with a long list of curated and “customisable” services for all groups of residents, from healthcare, leisure, social, mental, to physical assistance. To ensure it is sustainable and to help Joint Management Body (JMB)/Management Committee (MC), IOI Properties promised to stay in at least for 5 years as the property management company (via IOI Building Service arm) to upkeep this building, especially the “software” is running smoothly. The unique features of private lift, direct car park access, mobility friendly unit and environment will entice certain group of purchasers. We particularly like the low density design, great greenery views, extensive facilities and the self-sustainable leisure township lifestyle.
Unlike the usual technical or detail project analysis, PROPCAFE tried to relate the property with wellness living lifestyle. We constructed the content in this way because we feel that it is very essential to understand the full concept of wellness living so one would clearly know your market proposition (if you are an investors) and how this property can offer and help your wellness living (if you are actively looking for such living lifestyle).
In short, there is no doubt that this project will do well given the rarity of such product and features in the current market. Most importantly, based on our conversation with the developer, we know that the Gems Residences is sincerely designed and built to encourage Multi-Generation Living and Wellness Living Lifestyle!
To know more about IOI Resort City, you can continue to read our previous articles here:
PROPCAFE™ Review: The Clio 2 Residences @ IOI Resort City, Putrajaya By IOI Properties
PROPCAFE™ Review: IOI Resort City Part 2
PROPCAFE™ Review: Par 3 @ IOI Resort City By IOI Properties
PROPCAFE™ Review : Conezion @ IOI Resort City By IOI Properties
Latest Progress Update
Appendix – Show unit
Type A1(G)
Type C1 Show Unit
