Thomson Plaza, formerly unofficially called Thomson

Yaohan or ; ) was a Japanese retail group, founded in 1930 by and his wife . Initially a single shop, it was expanded by their son Kazuo Wada into a major supermarket chain with most retail outlets located in Shizuoka prefecture, south of Tokyo. It ...

, is a

suburban A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

located along

Upper Thomson Road Thomson Road is a major trunk road linking Singapore's central business district with the northern suburban areas of the country. The road is one of the longest in Singapore, starting from Novena in the south towards MacRitchie Reservoir, before ...

, in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Opened in 1979, Thomson Plaza is best known for having a

departmental store in the 1980s and 1990s.

Design

Thomson Plaza is built over of land and is relatively low-rise, in keeping with the neighbourhood around the Thomson area. Thomson Plaza is one of the first public buildings to be designed with

barrier-free Universal design is the design of buildings, products or environments to make them accessible to people, regardless of age, disability or other factors. It addresses common barriers to participation by creating things that can be used by the ma ...

features from the onset. In addition to the standard

escalator An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizo ...

s, ramps were incorporated into the shopping complex's design to allow people in wheelchairs to freely navigate between different floors of the complex. Other handicapped-friendly features in the complex include enlarged toilet cubicles that cater to wheelchair users and door levers, which enable people with difficulty controlling their hands to easily open doors around the complex.

History

The proposal to build a residential and recreational complex along

was first approved by the Ministry of National Development in 1977 as part of its policy of decentralizing commercial activities away from Singapore's Central Business District. The contract to build this complex was awarded to Japanese construction company Ohbayashi Gumi by

Development Bank of Singapore DBS Bank Limited, often known as DBS, is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered at the Marina Bay Financial Centre in the Marina Bay district of Singapore. The bank was previously known as The Dev ...

, the appointed land developer for Thomson Plaza. Initially estimated to cost SGD$22.3 million, this project was completed eventually at a cost of $38 million in 1979. Even before its completion, Thomson Plaza attracted strong interest from retailers. 80% of its retail outlets were leased out within six months of their launch. Thomson Plaza later attracted the attention of Japanese retailer

, the pioneer of one-stop departmental stores in Singapore. At that time, Yaohan was famous for its innovative approach to customer service; its first departmental store in

Plaza Singapura Plaza Singapura is a contemporary shopping mall located along Orchard Road, Singapore, next to Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. The mall is managed by CapitaLand and owned by CapitaMall Trust. There are retail outlets over seven floors and two basemen ...

reportedly attracted 955,000 shoppers a week. Yaohan's store in Thomson Plaza became its third outlet in Singapore. In 1997, the parent company of Yaohan stores in Singapore was declared

insolvent In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company (debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet inso ...

due to its over-expansion and rising retail rental costs in Singapore. Thus, Yaohan closed its Thomson Plaza outlet, its last in Singapore, in 1998. Yaohan's former retail space was taken over by

NTUC FairPrice NTUC FairPrice is the largest supermarket chain in Singapore. The company is a co-operative of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC). The group has 100 supermarkets across the island, with over 160 outlets of Cheers convenience stores isl ...

supermarket chain.

References

External links

*
Official Facebook Page
{{Singapore malls Shopping malls in Singapore