saturday retail wonderland

THE STRAITS TIMES SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25 2012 PAGE D12

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GETTING A

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saturday retail wonderland L

THE STRAITS TIMES SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25 2012 PAGE D13

Plaza Singapura

Suntec City Mall

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By the fourth quarter of this year, the Atrium@Orchard will be integrated with Plaza Singapura. The new mall will boast a total net lettable area of 58,064 sq m and a 170m-long frontage along Orchard Road. The new development costs about $165 million. Information on the tenants at the new mall will be released at a later date.

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In November, Suntec City’s management announced a three-year renovation plan of its retail spaces and convention centre. The $410 million makeover will start in the middle of this year, and is expected to be completed in 2015. Upon completion, there will be almost one million sq ft of retail space. Specialty retail stores, plus new duplex and anchor tenants, will be part of the line-up. PHOTOS: SUNTEC REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST

Wisma Atria

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Currently under a $31 million renovation which started in July last year, the new section of the mall will be ready by the third quarter this year. Upon completion, it will have a 123m-long facade that will house duplex flagship stores of mid- to high-end brands, including new-to-market American label Tory Burch. American brand Coach and Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer will also be opening their first brand principal-run flagship stores in Singapore there. Watch out for Swiss watch retailer Swatch’s first concept store in South-east Asia too. PHOTO: WISMA ATRIA

PHOTO: CAPITAMALLS TRUST

Injecting a Times Square buzz into Orchard

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STB working with businesses to turn area into a more cohesive and vibrant shopping street BY GLADYS CHUNG ORCHARD Road might soon rival New York’s Times Square and London’s West End as a world-class shopping and lifestyle destination. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is currently working on turning the Orchard Road Business Association (Orba) into a formal place management entity: an area-based public-private partnership to market and add vibrancy to Orchard Road with more exciting initiatives. Orba represents the interests of the businesses along Orchard Road. Currently, it has more than 60 members, including Club 21, CapitaMalls and Orchard Turn Developments. “The project will help turn Orchard Road into a more cohesive shopping street where visitors come to shop, dine, stay and play,” says Mr Steven Goh, Orba’s executive director. Orchard Road’s place management project will be inspired by overseas models, including the New West End Company in Britain, the formal business improvement district for Bond, Oxford and Regent streets. Its duties include driving sales to the businesses and managing the streets to improve the shopping experience. The Times Square Alliance in New York, which organises the world-famous Times Square New Year countdown, is another case study. Its achievements so far: Almost 49 million tourists visited New York City in 2010; and although Times Square comprises only 0.1 per cent of New York City’s land area, it supports 10 per cent of the city’s jobs and generates 18 per cent of its economic output. However, “the models will be adapted to the Singapore context”, says Mr Andrew Phua, director of precinct development at STB. For example, clean and safe initiatives in the shopping streets under those overseas models will be irrelevant in Singapore because “the Government has already taken care of (these issues) pretty well here”. To get a better idea of how to proceed with the yet-to-be-named place management project, STB appointed audit and advisory firm KPMG in November last year to carry out a study to better understand the needs of the malls and businesses in Orchard Road. Details of how the place management project will be implemented will be released in July. The project will probably be co-funded by the Government and the private sector. “After we finished the rejuvenation works in Orchard Road two years ago, we started to work more closely together with Orba because we felt that the private sector was ready to be on board with us,” says Mr Phua. “The stakeholders are the best people to look at their own needs and decide how they want to move forward.” To make Orchard Road more attractive to both local and foreign shoppers, STB and Orba have been working together on projects like the Christmas light-up and Fashion Season@Orchard – an annual fashion extravaganza showcasing the wares of the strip’s retailers – for the past two years. “The place management project is about creating key success factors that Orchard Road should have to compete 20 or 30 years down the road, and be one of the world’s greatest shopping streets,” adds Mr Phua. Ms Florence Neo, director of jewellery retailer Charlotte Ehinger-Schwarz 1876, which is located at Wisma Atria, Suntec City Mall and The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, is all for activities that drive visitors to the shopping belt. “They add festivity to the shopping scene and will give us an edge over suburban malls as people will have more reason to shop downtown.” However, she adds that the organisers “should ensure traffic conditions are not affected by these activities” because events like road closures “are bad for business”. Ms Jo Chieng, a 28-year-old account manager in the telecommunications industry who visits Times Square at least once every year, says place management can “help to turn Orchard Road into a distinctive tourist destination like Times Square, rather than a generic strip of individual malls”. “I look forward to more events like the Christmas light-up where Orchard Road businesses come together as one.” [email protected]