Revamp for Bedok Town Centre
Hundreds of new flats, seamless link for MRT and bus interchange
BEDOK Town Centre will receive a complete facelift in the next four years, with the building of a new integrated public transport hub and private homes.
These new developments will stand on a plot that will also have space for commercial use totalling 35,000 sq m, which is about the size of Junction 8 shopping centre in Bishan.
But the most dramatic change for residents will probably be the seamless linking of Bedok bus interchange to the MRT station and the building of an estimated 475 private apartments beside the interchange.
Residents interviewed welcomed the news that the bus interchange will be air-conditioned while property analysts foresee the apartments being snapped up by young couples and home upgraders.
Housewife Maria Ahmad, who lives in Bedok North, is delighted as the changes will give her more places to shop. ‘I’ve been waiting for Bedok Point to open and now there’s this new development too,’ said the 40-year-old.
Bedok Point, a mall which will open next month, stands close to the new project, which will take up a 2.49ha plot now occupied by a bus interchange.
Senior Minister S. Jayakumar, an MP for East Coast GRC, is convinced that the proximity of the projects will give residents ‘a rejuvenated and more vibrant town centre’.
Together, ‘it will really be a total makeover’, he told The Straits Times.
Minister of State for Manpower and Trade and Industry Lee Yi Shyan, who is MP for East Coast GRC’s Kampong Chai Chee ward, which includes the town centre, added: ‘The new project will inject a lot of life, dynamism and excitement into the lives of people living in East Coast.’
The promise of commercial and residential developments attracted nine bids yesterday when the sale tender closed, said the Housing Board.
The top bid was about $790 million, made jointly by two subsidiaries of property giant CapitaLand.
The successful bidder will be made known in two weeks’ time, said the HDB spokesman yesterday.
Bedok is one of Singapore’s largest HDB estates, with close to 200,000 residents. It is among the early HDB new towns and saw its first high-rises in the 1970s.
Professor Jayakumar recalled that when he became MP for Bedok constituency in 1980, it had very basic facilities: a bus interchange and no community centre.
‘Now, the whole place has transformed,’ he said. Bedok is now part of East Coast GRC, and the constituency has several community centres, food centres and wet markets.
More changes are being planned. One idea MPs have floated is to bring under one roof the ageing sports facilities in Bedok, such as the swimming pool, indoor stadium and Adventure Park, said Prof Jayakumar.
The land freed up can be used to build new HDB flats or private condominiums, and that will bring many new and younger families to Bedok Central, he added.
Ngee Ann Polytechnic real estate lecturer Nicholas Mak hopes the private apartments coming up in Bedok town centre will be two- and three-room homes that are about 1,300 sq ft.
‘These would be of a decent size and, as Bedok is a mature estate, the flats will be much in demand from families with three generations that want to live under one roof,’ he said.
He expects the apartments to be priced around $1,100 to $1,150 per sq ft, with some going for as much as $1,200 per sq ft.
Source: Straits Times, 2 Sep 2010
