Waterpoint – valuable urban area at southwest entrance of Saigon

Riverside project with the most convenient traffic

The big meeting room at Nam Long office in District 7, HCMC impressed visitors with a big picture of Vam Co Dong river and coconut water trees in early morning. The company shared that this is a part of natural view from the in progress Waterpoint urban area in Ben Luc District, Long An province.

Waterpoint has a total area of 355 hectares and about 5 kilometers border with Vam Co Dong river, suitable for river development projects. In Vietnam, there are not many projects contoured by a natural river, especially by Vam Co Dong River with distinctive green water. This is one of the two scenic rivers of Vietnam, beside the Hue’s Perfume river, giving the project the landscape of green coconut water scenery and green river.
Mr. Nguyen Xuan Quang, Chairman of Nam Long, recalled the time of 2003-2004 when he had the opportunity to visit the big projects of leading real estate group Gamuda in Singapore and Malaysia. They developed townships in the suburban areas which total areas were approximate 400 hectares, 800 hectares, or even thousands of hectares. Listening to their experience sharing, he realized that it was absolutely possible to develop such projects in Vietnam.

The Waterpoint project has many advantages in terms of nature and transportation.

There were Ciputra in the North and Phu My Hung in the South that have the same modelling. While visiting Nam Long’s project, a Malaysian investor specializing in developing townships said that he would invest in Waterpoint to scale it to an urban area.
According to Mr. Quang, Waterpoint is located in Ben Luc (Long An), one of the seven main planning areas in regional HCMC with extremely convenient traffic location, connecting key urban areas in four ways of transportation: airway, roadway, waterway and railway.
Following Ho Chi Minh City-Trung Luong highway, Waterpoint Long An is the connecting point between 18 million people in Ho Chi Minh City and 17.3 million people in the Mekong Delta (Population report in 2015). With a total population of about 35 million people, these two regions account for 64% of the country's GDP. This is a favorable premise to meet the principle of urban development: associated with population and income.
Travel time from Waterpoint to downtown Ho Chi Minh City is about 40-45 minutes and no traffic jam. According to Nam Long’s survey, this is only equivalent to the travel time in-between the city due to increasingly high traffic volume.
From Waterpoint, it is also easy to access Tan Son Nhat Airport via Highway 1 - Vo Van Kiet - Ly Thuong Kiet, or Long Thanh International Airport via Nguyen Van Linh Highway - Ho Chi Minh City - Long Thanh Expressway.
About the waterway, HCMC’s Cat Lai port is now excitingly crowded and will be overloaded soon. If Long An’s Hiep Phuoc port, located near Waterpoint, is opened, the crowd will quickly be shared between these two ports, creating a driving force for the port development, proving Waterpoint’s strategic trading location. That is not to mention it is easy to travel from Waterpoint to Bach Dang wharf (district 1) and Tan Thuan port (district 7) via Ben Luc river, Cho Dem river.
About the railway, Ben Thanh - Tan Kien route in under construction Metro 3A project will go through Waterpoint urban area. Mr. Quang evaluates that Waterpoint is an important connecting point between Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta thanks to all available traffic conditions. This is a very important factor to help Waterpoint become satellite city in the future.

The park is right outside of the house

Even though Nam Long’s project is highly connected to the city center but the group’s ambition does not stop at "leveraging" the utility of other urban areas. With experience of completing eight urban areas in Ho Chi Minh City, Nam Long has a list of partners including planners, designers, infrastructure builders from Japan, Australia, Netherlands..., enough to create an all-inclusive city not only for living but also for work, study, leisure, supporting the depopulation strategy and reducing pressure for major cities.

Realizing that city people has a narrow life in which they sit everywhere, stick their eyes to the walls, and lack of exercising, Nam Long’s real estate developers thinks that they need to liberate this monotonous lifestyle and bring plentiful life to target customers at reasonable price. Therefore, Nam Long plans to build all-inclusive urban areas with priority services to ensure that residents have a complete everyday living.
Waterpoint will have a waterfront urban area with a 165-hectare phase 1 including a central park of over 20 hectares, three times the size of the city's public park (7-10 hectares). This phase is also designed to encourage physical activity with a jogging track, a bicycle pathway, a 2.5-ha community amusement park and an international standard pool. Nam Long will also use 17 hectares to build a university and an international school, as well as 8 hectares for commercial and service areas, and 3 hectares for health care.
In order to preserve the nature of Vam Co Dong River, a 50m wide coastal vegetation corridor will be fully retained.

Especially, the urban area design comes with canal water conditioned, with perfectly treated water quality throughout the urban area. The entire ground leveling of the project will be 3m high, avoiding flooding for the next 80 years. In addition, Waterpoint is embraced by 5-km natural river. In order to ensure the sustainable development of the urban area, the investor will keep the riverbed of 50m along the river to protect nature and balance the ecosystem.
In the short term, Nam Long’s management said that the execution of the first phase of Waterfront project over 165-hectare land would include the central park, thousands of townhouses, villas or land for sales for people who wants a second house. Total investment capital is VND 6,900 billion in this period, which is expected from 2018 to 2022. Total expected revenue is VND 10,700 billion.
According to the company's representative, compensation process has been 99% completed, closing more than 340 hectares of used land and Waterpoint project is ready for development. Not to mention, part of the project is adjacent to 6,000-ha NorthBen Luc area, including urban areas and industrial parks which are funded by many investors and planned 1 / 10,000 by the provincial government to develop and expand in future.

By Danntri