SINGAPORE — An industrial estate and a row of warehouses at Depot Lane in Bukit Merah will be vacated by the fourth quarter of 2025 to make way for housing.
JTC Corporation, which manages the industrial estate, said the plot will be returned to the state for future residential development, in response to queries from The Straits Times.
Under the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s master plan, the Depot Lane industrial estate is part of a 7.3ha site zoned for residential use. Its plot ratio, which determines the intensity of the development, is subject to detailed evaluation.
The industrial estate, consisting of about 240 units across eight blocks, was built in the 1970s. Six adjacent warehouses, which make up the rest of the plot, are owned by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA).
JTC said tenants were told about the redevelopment plans for the area in 2018 and were offered replacement factory spaces at JTC Space @ Ang Mo Kio or Bedok Food City.
Western food stall Original Botak Jones took to social media in April to announce the closure of its outlet in the Yue Hua coffee shop at Depot Lane on June 22 due to redevelopment of the area.
“We reopened this outlet during the most uncertain times — in 2021, when dining in wasn’t even allowed. It’s been an incredible four-year journey,” it said.
The coffee shop shuttered on June 23.
Xu Tianmu, director of Yue Hua coffee shop, told ST that he felt reluctant to close the place as it had been at Depot Lane for around 20 years.
“It’s quite sad because this is the oldest coffee shop we have. Many of the stallholders have been with us for more than 15 years,” said Xu, who also ran the Original Botak Jones outlet there.
He took up JTC’s offer of a replacement site at Bedok Food City and set up an Original Botak Jones outlet there in 2022.
“Depot Lane used to be very vibrant and business used to be good,” he said, adding that many businesses moved out of the industrial estate about three years ago.
When ST visited the Depot Lane industrial estate on June 24, many of the tenants appeared to have moved out.
Alex Lim, owner of PPF Singapore Xpel, a company that sells protection films for vehicles, said it has to move out of Depot Lane by the end of June, after about five years there.
He said he had to bid for a unit at an industrial park in Ang Mo Kio, as JTC had not offered him a replacement site.
JTC said business owners who took up tenancies after the announcement of the redevelopment plans in 2018 were told not to expect replacement sites when they were asked to vacate.
Although Lim was awarded the Ang Mo Kio unit, he lamented that its monthly rental of $4,500 is markedly higher than the $2,600 rent for the Depot Lane unit.
In 2018, all of the Housing Board’s industrial properties and land — including the Depot Lane industrial estate — were transferred to JTC. Tenants that were originally under HDB will be offered replacement units and other relocation benefits when they move out due to redevelopment, under HDB’s Industrial Redevelopment Programme.
The owner of a construction engineering firm, whose office has been at the Depot Lane industrial estate since 1987, said he initially wanted to take up JTC’s offer of a replacement unit in Ang Mo Kio. But he could not get his preferred ground-floor unit.
The owner, who declined to be named owing to the sensitivity of the matter, said he tried bidding for an industrial unit in Penjuru Close. As the tender closed with another tenderer placing the highest bid, he is unsure if he will be awarded the unit.
“When we get a new place, we still need to renovate it, arrange for electrical installations and a lot of things. All this needs money,” he said.
The SLA-owned warehouses at Depot Lane are tenanted to a master tenant, real estate management services group LHN Group, ST understands. All sub-tenants will also have to vacate the site by the fourth quarter of 2025.
Lee Sze Teck, senior director of data analytics at real estate firm Huttons Asia, said there could be pent-up demand for homes in the Depot Road area as the last public housing development there was launched in 2012.
Depot Road is sandwiched between two mature estates — Redhill and Telok Blangah — and there was good demand for the four-room flats in the Depot Heights Built-To-Order (BTO) project launched in July 2012, he noted.
Lee estimated that, with a gross plot ratio of three, more than 2,000 HDB flats can be built on the 7.3ha site, around the area of 10 football fields.
He said BTO flats there could fall under the Standard category as it is not near any MRT stations.
Standard flats, which come with a five-year minimum occupation period (MOP), form the bulk of flat supply.
Plus and Prime flats, which are closer to the city centre, transport nodes and amenities, come with stricter resale conditions, such as a 10-year MOP and a subsidy clawback.
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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
