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Monthly Archives: September 2009

New Orchard mall targets youth

Posted on 21 Sep 2009 | Comments Off

YET another mall will go up on Orchard Road next year, but it will distinguish itself by giving only 30 per cent of its space to retail, or food and beverage businesses.

The rest of the space in the five- storey building will go to a wide range of facilities aimed at nurturing youth talent and developing a vibrant community for young people.

*Scape, which will sit on a 12,000 sq m plot next to Orchard Cineleisure, will be ready in March. It will be in addition to the *Scape Youth Park across the road.

The $40 million building will position itself as an iconic youth brand and be a youth-engagement hub, said its general manager Evelyn Lau.

Its third storey, for instance, will have dance, music and recording studios for budding musicians, and its fourth, new media production suites and editing studios for those keen on generating new media content.

Those who want to put up a drama or musical performance can do so at a theatre, which can seat 600. Continue reading →

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Posted in Construction, General

Tagged Orchard Road, scape, Scape Co Ltd

Property: Govt has learnt from history

Posted on 21 Sep 2009 | Comments Off

THE last thing the Government expected to do in this recession year was tackle a budding housing bubble, the second to appear in three years. But on Tuesday, four state bodies – the Ministries of National Development, Finance and Law, as well as the Monetary Authority of Singapore – came together to do just that.

They unveiled measures to cool the downturn-defying ‘exuberance’ of the property market, revealing in the process how much the Government has learned about pricking property bubbles since the epic housing bubble of 1996.

What stood out about Tuesday’s announcement was that it was timely and generally light-handed. Some measures were even widely anticipated, such as the reinstatement of regular, scheduled sales of state land through the confirmed list.

Back in 1996, the Government acted only after home prices had been rising for 10 straight years, including the surges of 1993 and 1994. And just two years ago, when the Government removed the deferred payment scheme in October 2007 to deter speculation, the move came only after private home prices had jumped 23per cent in first nine months of 2007, on top of a 10per cent rise in 2006.

This time, the anti-speculation steps were announced just as the bubble was forming. Indeed, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said the measures were designed to ‘pre-empt any speculative bubble’. Continue reading →