Singapore’s next chapter: New models for regional hubs, industrial estates in URA’s Draft Master Plan 2025
Major office hub planned for Bishan, more flexible use allowed for industrial sites near transport nodes in Jurong and Tuas. These tweaks are designed for evolving business needs
- Plans to grow decentralised office spots with the refresh of regional business nodes in the north, west and east
- Review of industrial land use zoning guidelines to meet business needs
- New residential neighbourhoods in Newton, Paterson, the Greater one-north area, and around Paya Lebar Air Base
[SINGAPORE] To meet Singapore’s changing needs, state planners are retooling the city’s regional hubs and older industrial estates for an evolving economy, the new Draft Master Plan 2025 reveals.
A bigger decentralised office hub in Bishan, on the scale of Paya Lebar Central, is on the cards. The government also plans to open up spots with more flexible zoning in industrial estates that can cater to new business models and non-industrial use.
The authorities are reviewing Singapore’s industrial land use zone guidelines to “better respond to evolving business needs”, said Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat at the launch of the blueprint on Wednesday (Jun 25).
Moving away from mono-use zones to mixed-use districts will give developers greater flexibility on industrial land and enhance Singapore’s economic competitiveness.
Key planning priorities were outlined in the Draft Master Plan 2025 (DMP2025) of the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). Such master plans guide Singapore’s development in the next 10 to 15 years, and are reviewed every five years.
Chee said: “As we continue to chart out long-term plans to build a brighter future for Singapore, we must also remain agile and continually refine our land use plans to deal with new challenges.”
A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU
Tuesday, 12 pm
Property Insights
Get an exclusive analysis of real estate and property news in Singapore and beyond.
A more uncertain global economy means “business activities and supply chains could undergo further shifts”, he said. Singapore also needs to prepare for the effects of climate change, and changes in demand for housing.
Reworking business nodes, moving beyond the city centre
The government is intensifying efforts to decentralise office spaces by growing Singapore’s regional hubs.
At Bishan, plans are in the works to introduce new office spaces matching the scale of Paya Lebar Central, a relatively new commercial precinct that now houses the sprawling Paya Lebar Quarter development, completed in 2018-2019.
Lendlease and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority jointly acquired the Paya Lebar plot at a state tender in 2015 for S$1.67 billion, and developed seven buildings on the 3.9-hectare (ha) site – a retail mall, three office towers and three private residential blocks. Paya Lebar Quarter and Paya Lebar Square contain well over a million square feet of office space.
The new Bishan sub-regional centre will have community amenities such as a polyclinic, hawker centre and a revamped bus interchange with air-conditioned waiting areas.
Some government agencies are now looking at relocating their offices there, to kick-start the development of the business node, said URA.
Market watchers pointed to several plots of vacant land near the Bishan interchange and around the Junction 8 mall, suggesting that new developments could come up on top of the interchange.
“There are possibilities to mimic other sub-regional centres such as Buona Vista and Paya Lebar,” said Desmond Sim, the chief executive of commercial real estate advisory firm ETC.
Colliers research head Catherine He added that Bishan was likely chosen for its accessibility and proximity to both the city centre and northern heartlands.
Dr Woo Jun Jie, senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, noted that Bishan is surrounded by large public housing estates such as Bidadari and Toa Payoh – making it a prime area for a decentralised business node.
Chua Yang Liang, JLL head of research and consultancy for South-east Asia, said bringing more jobs closer to the residential community aligns with a decades-old principle of decentralisation, first mentioned in the 1991 Concept Plan as a way to decongest the downtown area and create more business ecosystems and employment opportunities across the island.
Whether that could affect housing prices – given that home prices in Bishan are already higher than elsewhere – will depend on the land supply at the time, said Prof Sing Tien Foo, the provost chair professor of real estate at the NUS Business School.
In Woodlands, upcoming developments will capitalise on both the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone and the upcoming Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link, which is expected to be ready by end-2026.
A new multi-modal transport hub will connect the RTS Link to MRT and bus services, and will be part of a 7-ha integrated development designated for “business-white” use, with office, industrial and retail spaces for businesses and the community. This is expected to be completed in the mid-2030s.
Business-white zones allow industrial developments to have a greater proportion of non-industrial uses. Complementary developments such as co-working spaces can also be considered. The URA website says that “in future, if the disamenities from industrial uses can be managed, it can even accommodate hotels and housing”.
More business-white sites will be introduced around key transport nodes in the Jurong and Tuas industrial estates, on top of existing sites in Woodlands, URA said on Wednesday.
ETC’s Sim reckons that this will be a welcome change, since much has evolved in recent years, especially with how traditional commercial spaces are used and the way people work. “The use-group determined by the master plan may have been definitive and successful 10 to 20 years ago, but it (now) needs a review.”
Alan Cheong, executive director of research and consultancy at Savills Singapore, said while it would have been preferable for the government to provide more land for Grade-A offices in the Central Business District, the availability of industrial space for office use is a good alternative.
“Companies here are already facing cost push pressures from labour and other overheads,” he said. “If they can ameliorate these costs by finding (a site) in an industrial location at significantly lower rents, it would retard their decision to relocate out of Singapore.”
Cheong added that inserting office uses into industrial zones was “a better way to offer flexible office locations than to push for mega office complexes in regional centres”. Higher construction costs for office projects would translate to rents which are “still too high” relative to locations outside Singapore.
At the same time, Sim cautioned that the use of such business-white sites should be carefully calibrated. “We don’t want a knee-jerk reaction with a total change of space – that would totally skew the space utilisation and land valuation (with rents increasing as the number of uses grow),” he said.
Chee added at the launch that the government will proceed with the development of Jurong Lake District as Singapore’s largest mixed-use business district outside the city centre.
The redevelopment of the former Jurong Bird Park and Jurong Hill will support the growth of the western gateway as well, injecting jobs, amenities and recreational spaces into the greater Jurong area, where Singapore’s first industrial estate was born.
In the north-east, the 138-ha Seletar East Industrial Estate situated between Punggol Town and Seletar Aerospace Park is being set aside for high value-added industries such as a wafer fabrication park, Chee said.
The project reflects the key role that electronics plays in Singapore’s economic growth. Electronics account for about a fifth of the city-state’s exports, noted Colliers’ He.
Meanwhile, the city centre will continue to anchor the Republic as a global financial and business hub; plans have been drawn up to refresh Orchard Road and the Downtown areas. A new park will be formed in the heart of Orchard Road, which will merge Istana Park, Dhoby Ghaut Green and a 500-m stretch of Singapore’s main shopping belt.
Around Marina Bay, a planned wellness attraction and the expansion of Marina Bay Sands will boost capacity for conferences and events, Chee added.
Efforts to optimise land use will also extend underground to free up surface land. The government is exploring potential caverns at sites such as Gali Batu in Woodlands for storage of construction aggregate. It is also identifying more possibilities for new underground developments. For instance, there is an underground electrical substation under an upcoming development along Alexandra Road.
Catering for changing housing demand
The DMP2025 also prioritises building more homes to meet demand. Residential estates will be carved out in central locations and in areas now being revamped for housing.
In all, at least 80,000 public and private homes are expected to be introduced across more than 10 new housing areas islandwide in the next 10 to 15 years.
URA said that the development of these new neighbourhoods will be paced out to “allow for flexibility to review and adjust plans regularly in tandem with evolving needs and trends”.
The 2025 road map also details plans for more greenery, with more than 25 new parks and over 50 km of park connectors over the next five years.
More than 20 buildings will be proposed for conservation to safeguard Singapore’s built heritage. These include NatSteel Steel Pavilion, the first heavy-industry factory in Jurong Industrial Estate, and the former Pasir Panjang English School, which was built in the 1920s and 1930s.
Copyright SPH Media. All rights reserved.
