CITY PLAZA, 2018
The sight of closed shutters and the smell of Arnold's fried chicken, all while nostalgia hangs miserably in the air.
City Plaza, located at the intersection of Geylang Road and Tanjong Katong Road, is a mall where many lines meet. On weekdays, the mall is a ghost town - greeted only by regular patrons. Shop owners struggle to make ends meet and there seem to be more mannequins than the customers they are expected to greet. On weekends, however, the mall comes alive. Indonesian maids arrive in throngs to snag the best spots for picnicking. For them, City Plaza is a gathering ground, a place where they can get their favourite Indonesian fare that reminds them of home. They bring to City Plaza little lockets of joy and laughter, sounds that it used to enjoy every day in the past. Lodged in Paya Lebar, a town that is desperately trying to revamp itself by building new malls and residences, City Plaza is caught in the crossfire between the present and the past. A conundrum five-floors tall whose fate hangs grimly in the balance.
PEOPLE OF CITY PLAZA
WE SPOKE TO SOME TENANTS AND PATRONS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION
HOVER AND CLICK TO UNCOVER THEIR STORIES
Lina Lye’s eponymous shop first opened its doors in 1989. Though she is one of the oldest tenants in City Plaza, Ms Lye still greets her customers with a bright smile on her face. She moved here from Malaysia when she was just 14 years old, and opened the shop when she was 22 years old. As with most shops, business used to be better, and most of the the customers who buy clothes from her are her regulars.
Decked out in powder blue and perched behind the information counter on the ground floor is 51 year old security guard Mat Osman, who has been working for City Plaza for the past 4 years. City Plaza is busiest on Sundays, but Mr Osman reveals that helpers who use the mall as a gathering point for their meetups can sometimes prove to be an issue, especially when excessively large groups gradually begin to form and block the human traffic flow around the mall.
“Business is bad, very bad,” 56-year-old Mr Ngin said. He struggles on a daily basis to make ends meet. Having been here for over two decades, he has seen the number of regular customers dwindle steadily over the years before reaching stagnancy today. “There used to be many customers in the shop, now it's just me. Alone.”
The gossip and constant drivel of Indonesian domestic workers have helped kept Angel’s time here in City Plaza interesting. A veteran shop-keeper since the malls golden days where “All sorts of sizes also can be sold out”, Angel has seen with her own eyes the effects time has had on City Plaza. From the conversion of billiard and karaoke stores into wholesale stores, to the protracted looming rumours of en bloc, Angel knows the ins and outs of City Plaza.
Tuty Humairah is a fresh faced retail outlet selling traditional Malay clothing that opened its doors in February this year. Mdm Humairah had been cultivating an online presence for her brand where she built a loyal following. She eventually moved to City Plaza due to popular demand by regular and revisiting customers. Her success is mostly due to the use of Instagram to announce items for sale on that day and ongoing promotions.
Amy Jiang has been looking after the shimmery gowns adorning the store for about 10 years now. The store has more mannequins than actual customers unlike the heavy footfall that nearby Refash is seeing. Amy realises that online shopping and the presence of newer malls in the vicinity has been disrupting her shop ’s business, but she thinks the run-down exterior of City Plaza has a part too. “Other malls have wifi and other high-tech things, so if City Plaza can’t keep up, it will die.”
Dimitri Granat, 26, a Russian student who is doing his Master’s in NUS, visits City Plaza to have his usual ban mian at the canteen on the top floor. “It’s my favourite Singaporean dish,” he said. He is also drawn to the cheap clothes which keep him going back every few months. Despite being an irregular visitor, his patronage over the years shows that City Plaza has not lost its charm.
Along the row of shuttered shopfronts is a seemingly endless line of towels and other makeshift picnic mats. Seated were small clusters of Indonesian domestic workers on their Sunday day off. They seem to have no qualms about picnicking indoors. “If my friend told me, ‘meet at Paya Lebar MRT’, we know we are going to City Plaza,” said Anisaroh, 28. “Mostly Indonesian workers will visit City Plaza, like the Filipino workers who will go to Lucky Plaza on their days off.”
On Sundays, one of the rare shops that are open - and thrive - is Sari Ratu, an Indonesian restaurant. The 60-seater restaurant is packed with domestic helpers such as Dina, 33 and Siti, 32. They are digging into plates with heaping servings of rice, curry, and braised beef. From the chatty banter, one would have thought that they’ve known each other for years. “I just met her today!” Siti admitted, adding that the community was a friendly one and it was easy to make new friends.
A CITY
STUCK IN TIME
A PLAZA POISED FOR GREATNESS
The land that City Plaza sits on is one that has gone from housing a Kampong, to a hotel, to the mall of today. It was at the heart of the Pop Yeh Yeh movement of the 1960s, and part of the 1980s modernisation of the Geylang area. In order to better understand the signs of the times, we dug into both physical and digital archives to take a look at some of the significant historical milestones of the site and chart a timeline.
1960s
POP GOES THE YEH YEH
Even since the 1960s, the site that City Plaza sits on has been a gathering spot. Many Boyanese musicians would jam together at the area, then known as Kampong Melaka. Singaporean music blogger Andy Lim, 70, who used to frequent the area with his bandmates, recalls those moments fondly. He remembers that his Boyanese friend Moyah would carry his guitar wherever he went, even when doing chores at the nearby Geylang Serai market. This all changed, however, in 1969 when the area was cleared for the building of Hotel Singapore.
1970s
IT ALL GOES DOWN IN FLAMES
The success of Hotel Singapore, however, was short-lived. On the fateful morning of 9 May 1971, a fire started in the nightclub next to Singapore Hotel after its final set. There was a blackout and sparks were seen coming from the mains, setting fire to paper decorations and curtains. The fire became uncontrollable within minutes, and spread to the 26-room hotel, raging on for an hour before firemen were able to put it out. Fortunately, all the guests were saved, with only 5 injured. The fire cleared out the space that City Plaza would be built on.
1980s
ANOTHER ONE RISES FROM THE DUST
Fresh from the Hotel Singapore fire, City Plaza was completed in 1972. It was only officially opened on the 22nd November 1981 as sourcing for tenants took time. The 1980s saw “decentralisation and urbanisation of the retail trade” in Singapore (Sim, 1984) as more malls were built outside of the Orchard belt. City Plaza was one of 15 planned suburban shopping centres that were opened in Singapore that year.
It was also part of an effort to modernise the Geylang area into a satellite town. Geylang Serai in particular saw many traditional buildings "rapidly giving way to modern multi-storeyed complexes resulting in a change of retail form" (Sim, 1984). When it comes to town planning, the planned shopping centre "is an excellent agent for urban renewal and modernisation of the city centre" (Sim, 1993). And thus began the quick rise and fall of City Plaza.
1981
THE GLORY DAYS OF A $50 MILLION MALL
City Plaza opened to much hype and fanfare, as they held an eight-day opening celebration that involved a Hulk lookalike contest, a "Miss City Plaza" beauty contest, fashion shows and even a concert. With over $50 million being spent on the mall, it was touted as a "throbbing centre of the 80s" (City Plaza, 1981) and poised to be a fresh addition to the suburban mall mix. Its inward-facing shop architecture was seen as an improvement over the arcade-type exterior of some unsuccessful malls in Singapore.
Over the next few years, City Plaza saw major tenants such as People's Emporium move in, provided performing troupes with a space for concerts, and slowly started to gain fame for its wholesale shops. In 1984, it became home to the first Arnold's outlet in Singapore, hence drawing both foodies and fashionistas alike.
THE CUSP OF OBLIVION
It would be hard to mistake City Plaza for a modern mall. From the facade of its 20th century architecture to its outdated selection of shops within, they all point the mall in the direction of obsolescence. In the business of consumerism, the only way to stay in contention is to stay with the times.
City Plaza has not undergone a facelift since it was built in 1972, and this is apparent to anyone who visits. It is hard to believe that $50 million was ever spent on this mall. In comparison, another planned suburban shopping centre, Hougang Mall, was built in 1997 but underwent renovation less than a decade later in 2006 to renew its layout and facade. Quite simply, the lack of motivation to evolve with the times can be attributed to the strata-titled structure of the City Plaza’s ownership. A strata-titled mall has one where stallholders own individual stalls or a cluster of stalls instead of paying monthly rent in a mall with central ownership; Hougang Mall is under the AsiaMalls brand, for instance.
The strata-title ownership structure has problems intrinsic to its design. Having so many individual owners of the mall makes it nearly impossible for them to come to a consensus on a variety of issues. To represent the individual owners, City Plaza has a management office. However, the lack of strong incentive for the mall’s management perpetuates its directionless approach that has left City Plaza hanging in the saturated limbo of wholesale retailers with little distinction between them.
The retail scene is struggling to compete with e-commerce and the convenience and benefits that come with it. Coupled with the economic slowdown, the climate is harsh even for the most modern of malls. City Plaza is stuck in the shell of what it aspired to be, and has little in the way of retail offerings aside from a handful of niche shops. Perhaps the most symptomatic of this is when stallowners decide that staying closed is the savviest option.
A PLAZA IN PERIL
WHAT LIES ON THE HORIZON FOR CITY PLAZA?
In July last year, City Plaza made an attempt at en-bloc with a hefty price tag of $1 billion. Since total agreement was not met, the en-bloc did not manage to go through. This leaves City Plaza in status quo, a stark contrast from its neighbour, OneKM, the former grounds of Lion City Hotel which opened in 1968 and was demolished in 2011 to make way for the mall. In contrast to the stagnant business in City Plaza, OneKM enjoys brisk business, and is also a reason for City Plaza’s declining sales since consumers are more attracted to the bright lights and modern facilities of OneKM. On the flip side, despite being completed in 1978, City Plaza has not gone through any addition or alterations work even until today.
City Plaza is located within Paya Lebar, which is geared to become a vibrant commercial hub, with the construction of Paya Lebar Central and redevelopment of Singpost Centre both kickstarting the plan. Just above the mall at the junction of Tanjong Katong Road and Sims Avenue, retail and office development plans are already underway. Yet, the stagnancy of City Plaza seems to create a situation where its future is absolutely uncertain. Will it manage to successfully carry out an en-bloc and undergo redevelopment like its neighbours OneKM and Singpost Centre to pave the way for a bustling commercial hub, or will it stay the way it has always been, embedded in the past?
With the development plans of Paya Lebar, City Plaza is once again at the heart of a hotspot just like in 1981. Except this time, it is on the losing end. There is a concept dubbed the arrow of time - where time moves forward in a singular direction. We see malls rise and flourish with time as we know it. The chronology of City Plaza, however, defies this linear concept of time; it seems to be stuck in the confines of its hourglass, tossed around by the tides of time. Moving from an icon of the supposed future in 1981 to an anachronistic relic of 2018 as we know it –
a plaza of the past.
