Oral Answer by Ministry of National Development on demolition and rebuilding of three units of Ellison Building
Nov 8, 2016
Mr Kok Heng Leun: To ask the Minister for National Development in respect of the demolition and rebuilding of three units of Ellison Building:
(a) whether LTA and URA have considered realigning the North-South Expressway without affecting Ellison Building when the alignment plan was announced in 2011;
(b) whether studies were made before arriving at this option and, if so, whether they were disclosed;
(c) whether LTA and URA have consulted with stakeholders such as the long-term tenants of the building, residents living in the area and heritage organisations and, if not, what are the reasons;
(d) what is the loss in heritage value created by this option;
(e) what are the mitigation measures considered before deciding on this option; and
(f) why is this decision the best option.
Answer:
The North-South Corridor (NSC) is an integrated transport corridor which incorporates bus lanes, cycling trunk routes and an expressway that runs elevated as well as underground. When completed, it will connect the residential estates in the North such as Woodlands, Sembawang, Yishun, Ang Mo Kio, Bishan and Toa Payoh to the city centre.
Given the 21km length of the North-South Corridor (NSC), LTA had conducted detailed engineering studies over many years. Throughout this time, agencies worked very hard to minimise the impact of works on the NSC on neighbouring buildings.
The segment of the NSC leading into the city centre runs underneath Bukit Timah Road, where space is extremely tight due to the underground public infrastructure in that area. On one side of Bukit Timah Road is the underground Rochor Canal. This is an important drainage facility to ensure that low-lying areas in the city can cope with intense periods of rainfall. The North-East MRT Line (NEL) cuts across Bukit Timah Road, while the Downtown MRT Line (DTL) runs beneath Bukit Timah Road. This means that the NSC tunnels must run in between the foundations of existing buildings along both sides of Bukit Timah Road, the underground Rochor Canal as well as the NEL and DTL stations, as well as tunnels.
This is a very challenging engineering task as sufficient clearance distance must be allowed between the NSC tunnels and surrounding underground structures for safety reasons. The NSC tunnel also cannot be lowered further into the ground to avoid these underground infrastructures, as doing so will require extensive ramps and portal structures to connect the NSC carriageway with surface streets which will affect the nearby MRT stations and impact other buildings. Given these constraints, LTA has had to work out the best possible alignment for the NSC tunnel under the circumstances.
The original alignment for the NSC would have impacted even more buildings, including Rex Cinema, as well as several of the shophouse units at Ellison Building, much more than what the public is aware of today. In fact, Rex Cinema was completely affected in the initial alignments. Nevertheless, we recognised the heritage value of Rex Cinema and Ellison Building. Hence, agencies were committed to carry out detailed engineering studies to further minimise the impact on these buildings. On that basis, URA proceeded to gazette the two buildings for conservation in 2008.
Indeed, the agencies worked very hard to carry out extensive studies and eventually managed to develop a solution for the NSC to avoid Rex Cinema completely. However, given the very tight space in the Bukit Timah Road corridor, the NSC alignment will not be able to avoid Ellison Building entirely, which, unlike Rex Cinema, stands much closer to the road carriageway. These engineering studies were concluded only recently, and the result is that the impact on Ellison Building can, under current plans, be reduced to one corner shophouse unit, instead of a larger portion of the entire building.
Subsequently, LTA put out a tender to invite applications from contractors to be pre-qualified for the Design & Build civil contracts for the NSC tunnels. This is a pre-qualification tender, and the document gave general descriptions of the scope of works in these subsequent civil contracts, including the fact that the contractor had to undertake works on part of Ellison Building. This pre-qualification tender and specifications is not just about Ellison building, it’s about the whole length of the NSC from North to South. It was not the actual tender for the construction of NSC.
LTA’s intention had been that following this tender for pre-qualification of contractors, LTA will engage a conservation specialist to provide advice on how to better protect Ellison Building. This is akin to how, in the case of Circle Line 6, which will affect part of the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, LTA had similarly engaged conservation specialists to advise on how they could remove and reinstate part of the TPRS platforms. We recognise that the circumstance for each development is unique, and the conservation measures have to be tailored accordingly. In this regard, LTA and URA have started engaging heritage groups to seek their views on how to better protect the Ellison Building when the construction process begins. There have been two rounds of discussion thus far, which centred on possible mitigating measures to protect the building during the construction of the NSC. In taking this forward, LTA's conservation consultant will explore various mitigating measures in detail as part of the study on Ellison Building.
URA and LTA will continue to work closely with the heritage groups and the heritage community of Singapore on the construction methods to protect Ellison Building, as well as the measures that should be taken to preserve the heritage and history of the site. The Government will finalise its implementation plans after these discussions are concluded.