SINGAPORE
- Reprieve is at hand for churchgoers who have to queue for as long as two
hours in Suntec City Mall, in order to attend a worship service conducted by
New Creation Church (NCC).
Currently,
the 24,000-strong congregation attends services at multiple venues, including
the church's largest venue, the Rock Auditorium in Suntec City Mall.
The
auditorium seats about 1,200, and its lease expires next year.
Come
November, the mega-church's business arm, Rock Productions, is set to throw
open the doors of its spanking new $500-million performing-arts facility in
Buona Vista.
The
facility, called The Star Performing Arts Centre or The Star Pac, includes a
lushly designed 5,000-seat theatre that covers 46,930 sq ft and is built atop a
shopping mall owned and managed by CapitaMalls Asia.
The
chairman of NCC's council, Mr Matthew Kang, told my paper: "We have been
waiting (for) four years to see this project come to fruition... The new venue,
with its larger seating capacity, will certainly help ease the congestion at
our services."
The
rush for seats each week is so bad that the church management has had to issue
entry tickets with seat numbers since a few months back.
CapitaMalls
Asia pumped some $477 million into the retail portion of the building, named
The Star Vista.
The
Star Pac will span the third to the 11th floor of the building and will be
Singapore's largest neighbourhood auditorium.
It will
also house an outdoor amphitheatre which can seat about 300 people, a stable of
multi-purpose rooms to be used for meeting or as studios, as well as a roof-top
reception area.
Meanwhile
Rock Productions is looking to market The Star Pac as a venue-for-hire to cater
to mid- to large-scale performances and events.This includes the staging of
musicals, pop concerts and dance recitals.
Its
large seating capacity will fill the void for mid-sized performance venues in
Singapore, said Ms Sarah Lim, the marketing and front-of-house manager of The
Star Pac.
Venues
at the Esplanade and Marina Bay Sands seat only about 2,000 people each, while
larger spaces such as the Singapore Indoor Stadium take about 12,000.
"The
fact that we are located away from the Central Business District is a plus too
as those who drive will not have to rush with the rest of the crowd heading to
town," said Ms Lim.
The
retail portion of The Star Vista, set to open in September, is expected to
serve the needs of more than 400,000 residents, students and workers within a
5km radius of the one-north precinct.
More
than half of the net lettable retail area spanning 163,000 sq ft has been
leased out at a rental rate of between $14 and $18 per sq ft, to date.
As a
whole, the mall will see three levels of 110 retail and F7B outlets, with the
anchor tenants being Cold Storage and The Kitchen by Koufu.
Visitors
can also look forward to enjoying aromatic coffee at Owl's first cafe, as well
as popular Persian cuisine at Shiraz, which is making its first foray into the
suburbs.
Reico
Wong
my
paper
AsiaOne
Business & Investment Opportunities
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