SINGAPORE – A structural investigation has been completed on People’s Park Complex as part of the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) study on the potential conservation of the modernist icon in Chinatown.
The study, which assessed the building’s existing structural condition, will guide URA’s assessment “in determining the potential of conserving the building vis-a-vis redevelopment plans”, said Ms Tan Huey Jiun, director of conservation planning at the URA.
She told The Straits Times in February that the study was “recently completed”.
The 31-storey strata-titled complex – a 25-storey residential block atop a six-storey commercial podium – was designed by pioneer Singaporean architects William Lim, Tay Kheng Soon and Koh Seow Chuan of Design Partnership Architects, known today as DP Architects. Its construction was completed in 1973.
Ms Tan noted that the complex was one of the first mixed-use commercial and private residential developments in the region, adding that it was also the largest shopping complex in Singapore when it first opened and the first shopping complex in the country with atriums.
People’s Park Complex first attempted a collective sale in 2018 at an asking price of $1.3 billion, but it failed to obtain the required consent of 80 per cent of the unit owners.
Owners in the multi-use building then initiated a second attempt in March 2023 at the same asking price, although some uncertainties were raised in November that year after the URA informed the collective sales committee that the complex was being assessed for conservation because of its heritage and architectural significance.
The collective sales committee is awaiting results of the structural study from URA, as well as an update from the agency on whether the owners will be granted conservation incentives, such as bonus gross floor area (GFA).
Ms Anna Tan, a business development director at Tag Realty – the appointed sales agent for People’s Park Complex – told ST on March 3 that the committee will seek owners’ consent for a collective sale thereafter.
The 57,946.81 sq m building is on a 99-year lease that began on March 25, 1968, and sits on a 10,638.4 sq m site that is zoned for commercial use, with a gross plot ratio of 5.6.
Conservation incentives have been offered to owners of other strata-titled buildings built in the country’s post-independence years to make refurbishment and re-use of the conserved buildings more financially viable. The incentives could also make such buildings more attractive to developers concerned about the constraints imposed by conservation rules.
For instance, Golden Mile Complex – conserved in October 2021 – was given bonus gross floor area resulting in a one-third increase over the site’s original development intensity, which has allowed its developers to add four floors to the conserved building, as well as an additional 45-storey residential tower.
Separately, the owners of Golden Mile Tower – which is currently undergoing a collective sale exercise – have been given a 25 per cent increase over the complex’s current GFA if at least its cinema block is retained.
ST20250128_202540400839 /kgcomplex/Shintaro Tay/Ng Keng Gene/ The atrium at People's Park Complex in Chinatown on Jan 28, 2025. People’s Park Complex was completed in 1973 and was once Singapore's largest shopping complex.
One of People’s Park Complex’s atriums, which were a first for malls in Singapore when the complex was completed in 1973.ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY
Amid the ongoing conservation study on People’s Park Complex, non-profit heritage group Docomomo Singapore on Jan 27 issued a 106-page position paper to the Ministry of National Development and the URA.
In the public paper, the group recommended elements that should be retained if the building is conserved, and ideas on how more floor area can be added to the complex if allowed by the authorities.
ST20250128_202540400839 /kgcomplex/Shintaro Tay/Ng Keng Gene/
People's Park Complex is close to People's Park Food Centre in Chinatown on Jan 28, 2025. People’s Park Complex was completed in 1973 and was once Singapore's largest shopping complex.
Neighbouring roads buildings, such as the Housing Board’s People’s Park development (right), make it difficult for any potential bonus gross floor area to be built adjacent to People’s Park Complex.ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY
Chinatown’s nexus
In 1967, the site that People’s Park Complex is on was launched under the Government’s first sale of sites programme. Glass merchant and developer Ho Kok Cheong won the tender for the site.
Architectural and urban historian Eunice Seng noted in an essay in a book published in 2019 that People’s Park Complex, with its shops and emporiums under one roof in an air-conditioned space, “became the instant nexus of Chinatown”.
“As the first privately owned public space in Singapore, the complex was the shopping centre for people eager to exercise their newly found economic freedom,” wrote Dr Seng, who noted that more people had then joined the workforce, working in new factories and companies set up under a national initiative of economic growth and efficiency.
Crowds at the People's Park Complex. With
a wider range of products available to shoppers,
one of the biggest shortcomings or problems
of local manufacturers in their efforts
to penetration markets lies in marketing.
A crowd in People’s Park Complex in the early 1970s.PHOTO: ST FILE
A key feature that captures the building’s architectural, national and social significance is its atriums, which Docomomo Singapore said represented the development’s “humanistic and civic ambition” as people from all classes and walks of life could gather in these spaces.
About 60 children participating in an ice-cream
eating contest organised by Wall's Fitzpatricks
Sdn Bhd, in conjunction with the Nation's
Wealth Thru' Better Health exhibition at
People's Park Complex.
Children participating in an ice-cream eating contest in conjunction with the Nation’s Wealth Thru’ Better Health exhibition at People’s Park Complex in 1976.PHOTO: ST FILE
“These unprecedented interior-urban spaces defiantly resisted the market-driven logic of maximising leasable area,” said the group’s paper, which noted that the atriums were inspired by the Metabolism movement started by Japanese architects at that time.
The Government took advantage of the spaces, frequently using them for public education exhibitions and national campaigns in the 1970s, including ones on road safety and public health.
Mr Chai Chong Yii (3R), Minister of State
(Education) looking at one of the exhibits
during the opening of Road Safety Campaign
and exhibition held at People's Park Complex.
Next to him on his right is Mr Ahmad Mattar,
Parliamentary Secretary (Education).
Then Minister of State for Education Chai Chong Yii (centre) looking at an exhibit during the opening of Road Safety Campaign and exhibition held in People’s Park Complex’s “city room” in 1973.PHOTO: ST FILE
Sensitive conservation
Dr Yeo Kang Shua, vice-president of the International Council on Monuments and Sites Singapore, said that while development incentives are needed to make conserving the complex economically viable, the quantum of allowable floor area – if given – has to be calibrated.
“Add too much, and the building’s historic fabric will be impacted; too little, and the project would not be economically viable,” he said.
To this end, Docomomo Singapore proposed three ways that gross floor area can be added to the building, based on different volumes of additional floor area.
The group’s proposals centred on keeping the building’s atriums as well as its podium and slab typology intact.
For example, it proposed that any intensification can be kept to the podium block’s rear – which faces Park Crescent and the Housing Board’s People’s Park development – to minimise visual impact on the building’s form when viewed from Eu Tong Sen Street.
The iconic People’s Park Complex, with its expansive podium building and the residential block’s slab typology.ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY
Dr Yeo suggested that future developers could reference the original design that the Urban Renewal Department (URD) – the predecessor of the URA – had proposed for the complex, which featured three residential slab blocks atop a commercial podium. Developers were allowed to table alternatives.
While People’s Park Complex was eventually designed with only one slab block, Dr Yeo said that realising additional floor area in another slab is a possibility.
He added, however, that care will have to be taken to ensure that this does not impact the mall’s atriums, or draw too much attention away from its original 25-storey residential slab.
Dr Seng noted in her essay that the podium which was built included a carpark that was not in the URD’s design, while merging homes in one slab block created a larger recreation area on the podium block’s roof.
Model of flats/shopping complex at People's Park.
The Urban Renewal Department’s initial scheme for the People’s Park site had a commercial podium topped with three residential slab blocks.PHOTO: ST FILE
Another suggestion by Docomomo Singapore is to have additional GFA built as a new elevated building next to the complex, between the conserved Lower Barracks and Eu Tong Seng Street, without blocking the view of the barrack block from the street.
A rendering of an elevated building built where the conserved Lower Barracks (left) carpark is currently located, next to People’s Park Complex (background) and Eu Tong Sen Street (right).PHOTO: SPATIAL ANATOMY
Beyond physical changes to the complex, Docomomo Singapore also proposed that its future uses should honour the building’s role as the social hub of Chinatown.
One possibility would be to introduce assisted living for seniors as one of the residential options in the block, to serve the ageing population in the area and meet future needs.
URA’s Ms Tan said that the agency will evaluate the feasibility of the suggestions in the group’s position paper as part of the ongoing conservation study.
“We are unable to share further details as the conservation study is in progress,” she said.
Docomomo Singapore’s position paper on People’s Park Complex can be downloaded from the group’s website.
Ng Keng Gene is a correspondent at The Straits Times, reporting on issues relating to land use, urban planning and heritage.
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