With the 15-storey Vimean Keo Choronai Condominium close to completion, some 70 per cent of its apartments have already been sold.

“Only 40 of the 133 units are left,” Cambodia Properties Ltd (CPL) sales representative Oung Dany says.

Vimean Keo Choronai sits in what eventually will be an expansive, leafy garden setting on National Road 1 about 600 metres from Monivong Bridge in Meanchey district. Parts of the gardens have already been landscaped, and when the project is completed, gardens will cover 1.6 hectares and will include a mini-golf course, and volleyball, basketball and tennis courts, according to the family-owned Keo Maly Group, which is behind the development.

The new complex, which celebrated its groundbreaking ceremony in 2012, is yet more evidence of property developers increasingly looking to Phnom Penh’s outlying districts and communes as suitable areas for modern housing.

The owner of the land, Keo Maly, said in an interview with the Post in March last year that the aim of the apartment project was to provide modern, international-class housing that was within the purchasing power of the Kingdom’s rising middle class.

But, according to the showroom sales representative Dany, as many foreigners have bought into the development as Cambodians, and she says that it is the grounds and sporting facilities that are the primary driving factors for foreign investment in the property.

“Around 50 per cent of our sales have been to foreigners – mainland Chinese, Singaporeans, Taiwanese, Japanese, Americans and French mostly,” she says. “The foreigners really like the garden concept, and also the fact that the condominiums have been built so far back from the road.

National Road 1 is slated for expansion and comprehensive repairs starting in April in coordination with an improved border crossing with Vietnam, but Vimean Keo Choronai has been built around 100 metres back from the road to minimise noise pollution from traffic, says Cheng Kheng, CPL founder and managing director.

Another attractive feature of the complex, Dany says, is that it will be the first completed condominium block in Phnom Penh to feature a rooftop swimming pool. Other competing projects – notably on Koh Pich, or Diamond Island – are also touting rooftop swimming pools as selling points, but all are still at very early stages of development.

“The roof will have a swimming pool, a spa, a gymnasium and a rooftop garden restaurant,” Dany says.

Meanwhile, with a total ground area of three hectares, more apartment blocks are in the planning stages. They will eventually bring the total number of apartments available at the Vimean Keo Choronai complex to more than 500 units.

“The building under construction is the centrepiece, but when the project is completed it will have three more condominium blocks and a hotel,” Cheng Kheng says.

Kheng adds that the hotel will cater to package tourists and also to the visiting families of foreign retirees, who he says will find the complex attractive due to a comprehensive package of amenities that will include shopping, restaurants, a pharmacy and 24-hour security.

The units in the centrepiece structure range from 44-square-metre studio apartments priced from around $54,000 to 214-square-metre penthouse suites priced as high as $574,000.

According to Dany, both the 15-storey structure and all the interiors, which are fully furnished with furniture imported from Thailand, will be completed by July 31.

“The location makes it possible to offer premium condominiums at prices that are far more affordable than downtown developments, and when the road is improved and expanded it should still only take around 15 to 20 minutes to reach the Independence Monument area by car,” Kheng says.

Kheng declined to set a date on completion of the hotel and the three other condominium blocks, saying that completion of the centrepiece building, its gardens and sporting facilities were the first priority.