FINAL touches to the $40 million Orchard Road makeover are expected to be completed this weekend, after a 10-month-long project to rejuvenate Singapore's main shopping strip.
Final touches to the $40 million Orchard Road makeover are expected to be completed this weekend, after a 10-month-long project to rejuvenate Singapore's main shopping strip. --ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUANWorkers were seen on Wednesday scurrying around, erecting flower totems - large pillars decorated with fresh flowers - on the pavement from Forum The Shopping Mall to Liat Towers.
By this weekend, old lamp posts and electrical boxes will be stripped out.
New benches, lamp posts, recycling bins, planter boxes and other improvements are already in place along nearly 2km of Orchard Road, between Tanglin Mall and Concorde Hotel Singapore.
The walkways have been repaved, and one road lane has been sacrificed to create a wider pavement in front of Ion Orchard, Wisma Atria and Ngee Ann City.
The extra space has been given to 25 'urban green rooms', containing benches, planter boxes and large glass decorative screens that light up at night.
This is the first time Orchard Road has been extensively improved, with the aim of elevating it to the level of famous shopping streets like Paris' Champs-Elysees.
But the project had a rocky start. An initial ambitious idea by the Singapore Tourism Board, which paid for the works, to construct a glass canopy running down the stretch was promptly shot down by mall owners, who said it would require too much maintenance.
Read the full report in Thursday's edition of The Straits Times.
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