History of the PPC

The site where the People’s Park Complex was built was initially an open public ground named the People’s Park, nestled at the foot of Pearl’s Hills in Kreta Ayer, where the Pearl’s Hill Police Operational Headquarters has been since colonial times. The park then transformed into a Wet Market known as People’s Park Market (珍珠巴剎) or Pearl’s Market in the 1930s, due to its adjacency to Bridge Road and the growth of incoming street hawkers from bustling Kreta Ayer or Chinatown area. Furthermore, it was known for its night markets or pasar malam, selling durians until 2 am. Unfortunately, the traditional market caught on fire on Christmas Eve in 1966, destroying the whole complex which was made of timber.

The year after the incident, the Singaporean government announced the redevelopment of the destroyed lot into commercial-cumresidential buildings (the People’s Park Complex and the People’s Park Food Center), also as a way to tackle the overpopulation of Kreta Ayer and its surrounding vicinity. The building, in its strategic downtown location, would become the first modernist highrise in independent Singapore.

The images of the initial scheme showed Urban Renewal Department’s (URD) vision for the redevelopment that had a podium building with three parallel towers, complete with pioneering amenities such as a link bridge that would connect the shophouses, the people’s park redevelopment building, the park road development, all the way to pearl’s hill. In the end, People’s Park Development by Mr Ho Kok Cheong won the bid in 1967, making the People’s Park Complex a Private property with a 99-year leasehold from the government.