5.3 foCus on uses and users: The example of sunTeC CiTy

5.3 Focus on uses and users: The example of Suntec City

In Singapore, the process of urbanisation started at the mouth of the Singapore River. The CBD with an area of 82 hectares, is meant to be the nucleus of business and entrepreneurship developed in the south of the river (The Urban Redevelopment Authority, 1995). Through private initiatives and government land sale programs since 1967, the CBD has been developed into one of the world-class business and financial hubs by the 1980s (P. K. K Lum, 2005).

Suntec city of Singapore was commissioned and built by a private consortium in phases between 1995 and 1997 in the heart of Marina Centre Singapore. Like City Walk, Suntec is designed as a ‘city within the city’, offering a wide variety of shopping and leisure venues on a generously proportioned area with five office towers branching out from a four-storey retail podium. With a supply of 2.3 million square feet of office space, Suntec City has the critical scale to seriously rival the office space in the existing CBD at Raffles Place, which is just five minutes away by car. Despite the disadvantage in Suntec’s location and the lack of agglomeration economies, Suntec offices may take over Raffles place in the following five years.

Hosting the country’s largest convention hall, the development also comprises a family entertainment complex and exhibition centre all connected by street-level plazas, streets, walkways, and courtyards. Located within the Central Business District, Suntec City is within walking distance from the landmark Esplanade – Theatres by the Bay and near the Marina Bay enclave. Suntec City is within a 20-minute drive from Changi International Airport. Its prime location is easily accessible by all forms of public transport, including the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and is well served by two MRT stations, the Esplanade Station, and the Promenade Station, while within walking distance to City Hall Interchange (Suntec official website).

State entrepreneurship may not be a new concept to Singapore, but the successful public-private partnership and political entrepreneurship have rather proved capable of harnessing private capital as a step towards branding and globalization.

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Map of Suntec city a mixed use development in Downtown Singapore (Source: Author, Mariette Robin and Suntec city official)

Types of uses and breakdown of space in Suntec city (Source: Suntec city official)

Aerial view of Suntec city (Source: Google images) A home grown version of this kind of development is also seen in Dubai and discussed in detail in the Chapter 07.

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CHAPTER 06