Plan To Transform KL's Pudu Prison Into Commercial Hub

Source : The Business Times, 16 October 2007

(KUALA LUMPUR) Property developer UDA Holdings Bhd will begin transforming the Pudu Prison area in Kuala Lumpur into a commercial hub next year,says a report in Malaysia's Business Times.

'We have plans to turn the area into a commercial development, which will include retail centres, offices, residences and parks,' UDA general manager of urban development division, Nooraini Mohamad Rashidi, told MBT in an interview.

The development is currently referred to as the Bukit Bintang Commercial Centre, but there will be a name change once it has been completed.

The project, expected to stretch over eight to 10 years, will have a gross development value of RM2 billion (S$868.8 million), she said.

UDA agreed to buy the 8.1-hectare land housing the prison from the government in May 1999.

It was offered the development rights and first right of purchase of the land in exchange for having built the Sungai Buloh Prison.

The group is still in the midst of finalising ownership details.

UDA expects to kick off the project with a residential development comprising affordable apartments.

This will be followed by retail centres and later, offices.

It plans to include some iconic structures as part of the development.

Pudu Prison, Malaysia's oldest remand centre and built by the British in 1895, closed down in 1996 and was briefly turned into a tourist attraction.

Today, it serves as a detention centre for drug addicts in the city. This is, however, temporary as the Kuala Lumpur City Hall is expected to build new facilities to re-house the addicts next year, Ms Nooraini said.

'We will look at commencing work on the commercial project in 2008,' she said, adding that this would begin with demolition works.

Despite the area's prime location, UDA may have an uphill task persuading superstitious Malaysians to buy property on a former prison site where some of the country's most notorious criminals were executed.

UDA, however, is counting on people to have short memories once they see how attractive the area can look and feel when work on it is completed.

'It could be a marketing nightmare. But as in all places, after a while, people will forget,' Ms Nooraini said.

UDA has had previous experience in developing prison sites. It has, for example, built the Jerejak Resort & Spa on Penang's Jerejak Island, which used to be a prison.

Ms Nooraini said that the plan to develop the Pudu Prison area is part and parcel of UDA's mandate to increase bumiputera property ownership in urban areas.