SINGAPORE - Plaza Singapura, down at the less glitzy end of Orchard Road, has a new lease of life now that renovation works are over.
After its 21-month makeover, costing $150 million, the 38-year-old mall is nearly the size of Ion Orchard with about 80 new shops, all linked
to Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. Its net lettable area has grown by about 25 per cent to 629,000 sq ft. The previous block-like facade at Plaza Singapura
has been revamped with a wave-inspired design. The mall front now stretches 170m along Orchard Road. It has also been integrated
with its neighbour, The Atrium@Orchard, which mall owner CapitaMall Trust bought from the Government in 2008. A walkway now connects
the first floor of Plaza Singapura with the MRT station via the mall's new wing which is the retail podium of The Atrium@Orchard. The new wing
has about 80 shops, including several brands that are new to Singapore. These new stores are aimed at young adults and professionals,
managers, executives and businessmen, the mall said in a statement yesterday. One of them is 1 Market by Chef Wan, a buffet restaurant
launched jointly by the eponymous Malaysian chef and Food Junction Holdings. Located on the fourth floor of Plaza Singapura's new wing,
it serves a smorgasbord of South-east Asian cuisines. The 450-seater halal restaurant has been booked up for lunch and dinner until the
end of this year, Food Junction managing director and chief executive David Lim said yesterday at a media briefing at the restaurant.
Other new shops include JRunway, a 3,600 sq ft store that is the first Japanese multi-label boutique in South-east Asia, and several other
Japanese stores such as Japanese restaurant Tsukada Nojo and Hoshino, a coffee place by Japanese coffee chain Doutor Coffee. In the
old wing of Plaza Singapura, Cold Storage will be taking over the lower level of the space vacated by French hypermarket Carrefour when
it moved out at the end of September, the mall's management said. Cold Storage's 30,000 sq ft store is slightly smaller than the one at
Great World City. It will begin operations in the first three months of next year. The space Carrefour occupied on the ground floor of
Plaza Singapura has yet to be taken over by a tenant.
