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Shaw Tower (Singapore)

Shaw Tower, also sometimes referred to as Shaw Towers, is a high-rise commercial building located on Beach Road in Singapore.

The building was part of the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s plans in the 1960s to create a “Golden Mile” stretch of mixed-use buildings that merged living, work, and play.

History
The construction of Shaw Tower was completed in 1975, on the site of the now-expunged Hoi How Road, and two previously existing cinemas: Alhambra Cinema and Marlborough Cinema.

Shaw Tower is owned and managed by Shaw Towers Realty, a subcompany of Shaw Organisation. The project was previously referred to as Shaw Mansion in newspaper articles dated to as early as 1972, and was then reported to cost S$36 million.

Two cinemas managed by Shaw Organisation, Prince and Jade Theatres, opened inside the building shortly after it was built. They were located on two opposite ends of the building, with Prince facing Beach Road, and Jade angled towards Nicoll Highway. At the time, Prince Theatre was the largest movie theatre in Singapore.

Records showed that the building was in the final phase of a S$12-million renovation programme in 1988, splitting the two cinemas into four halls.

In 2009, Jade and Prince Cinemas were closed down, as their high-capacity halls could not compete with other more-flexible multiplexes and their smaller halls.

In 2018, the management of Shaw Tower gave notice to tenants to vacate the building’s premises by June 2020, in preparation for the redevelopment of Shaw Tower in the same year.

Architecture
The L-shaped floor area of Shaw Tower, with a narrow section angled towards Nicoll Highway, was due to the building being constructed upon the site of two demolished cinemas and the now-expunged Hoi How Road.

Shaw Tower was designed by Singaporean architect Charles Ho of Iversen, van Sitteren & Partners. The structure is Brutalist in style, featuring a podium-block-and-tower configuration. The former was designed as a retail space, while the latter was designated for offices. The multi-storey car park spanned the 3rd to the 11th floor. This gave the commercial space on the first two floors of Shaw Tower access to the street level.

The podium allowed Shaw Tower to align with the other low-rise shophouses that populated Beach Road at the time of its construction, while the high-rise tower made it a landmark in the area. Internally, there was a close integration of movement of shoppers and cinema-goers, while the circulation for offices was kept separated. The office tower was additionally designed on a fixed module, allowing flexible partitioning of the space.

The tower portion of Shaw Tower is staggered into three parts, with patterned sun-shading panels made from precast concrete lining its facade.

Redevelopment
In 2018, the management of Shaw Tower alerted tenants about the impending redevelopment of the building. Tenants would have until 30 June 2020 to relocate.

Slated to be ready by 2023, the new 35-storey Shaw Tower is expected to contain 400,000 sq ft of Grade A office space and 30,000 sq ft of retail space. The redevelopment will be synced with that of GuocoLand’s Guoco Midtown, which will be completed by mid-2022.

Upon completion, the new Shaw Tower will form an integral part of the Ophir-Rochor Corridor, a revamped, pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use district centred around Bugis MRT Station.