The poor economic climate has affected many neighbourhood retailers but there'll be some relief through the housing board's scheme to bring shoppers back into the heartlands. It's spending S$12 million to renovate 33 sites islandwide, covering some 3,000 shops, more than double the amount spent in its pilot scheme in 2007. The owner of a fish stall in Bukit Batok estate said his business saw a 10 to 20...
Singapore Retail
Singapore's prime shopping belt Orchard Road is set for a revival, with three new malls to be launched by the end of the year and two refurbished fronts. The malls include Orchard Central and 313@Somerset, and the new fronts are at Mandarin Gallery and Park Hotel Orchard. That amounts to about 1.8 million square feet of new retail space, bringing the total space available at Orchard Road to eight million...
Property developer Far East Organization has said its S$700 million Orchard Central mall is on track to open in June. The 12-storey mall has just obtained the temporary occupation permit. It expects to raise tenancy take-up rate to 75 per cent in the coming months, from the current 65 per cent. Far East Organization said Orchard Central will stand out from other malls when it opens in about two...
Tampines 1, Singapore's newest shopping mall, will open on April 9 with full tenancy confirmed. The S$450 million mall will join two others, Tampines Mall and Century Square in that area. Located beside the Tampines MRT station, the six-storey mall will have 172 tenants. More than 75 per cent of its tenants will open this Thursday. These include IT shop Challenger, Japanese clothing giant Uniqlo, and...
Twenty-four stallholders at Chinatown's night market along Pagoda Street have been asked to move. But some are unhappy, saying they would rather stay put. Their relocation is part of efforts by the Singapore Tourism Board to redevelop the area. Stallholders were initially given until the end of March to move out, but now they have until the end of next month. Negotiations between the Chinatown Business...
Shopping malls Anchorpoint and Liang Court have been named the first two Energy Smart Retail Malls in Singapore by the National Environment Agency. This is in recognition of their energy-saving measures to improve energy efficiency and lower operating costs. Anchorpoint spent some S$455,000 to retrofit its chiller system. That helped to reduce its electricity consumption by 1,192 megawatt-hours every...
ION Orchard, one of Singapore's largest shopping malls, is set to open this July amid the dismal economic outlook and falling consumer confidence. In a filing to the Singapore Exchange, CapitaLand said tenants have already committed to lease 80 per cent of space in the mall. 60 per cent of the retail space will be devoted to flagship stores and new-to-market brands including Boucheron, Dsquared and Diane...
Four industry bodies in Singapore have banded together to battle the current downturn. The Singapore Retailers Association, the Restaurant Association of Singapore, the Singapore Jewellers Association, and the Textile and Fashion Federation have pledged to share information and create a unified stance on matters common to their industries. In a joint statement, the four industry bodies say they have tied...
A 40-year-old shopping icon in Orchard Road is at risk of losing its tenants to upcoming malls in the area. Sources told Channel NewsAsia that about half of Shaw Centre's office and retail tenants had moved out within the last six months. Many of them refused to renew their leases after Shaw raised rents by about 100 per cent. Tyan and Betty Barclays, both upmarket boutiques on the ground floor of Shaw,...
ARE retailers on the verge of crisis or not? As their representative body cries out for help, shoppers who rub shoulders in crowded malls on weekends may be wondering. And at least one major landlord insists, there is no reason to panic, and no justification for an across-the-board cut in rentals. Last week, the Singapore Retailers Association sounded the alarm bells Sales have dropped 20 to 30 per cent...