Nex, Singapore

This article is about a shopping mall in Singapore. For the retailer operated by the United States Navy known as NEX, see Navy Exchange.

Nex, Singapore

Side view of Nex
Location	Serangoon New Town, Singapore
Address	23 Serangoon Central
Opening date	25 November 2010 (operational) 21 April 2011 (official)
Owner	Gold Ridge Pte Ltd
No. of stores and services	385
No. of anchor tenants	10 Anchors
Total retail floor area	600,000 sq ft (56,000 m2).
No. of floors	7 floors, including 2 basement floors and a rooftop
Parking	450 lots
Website	Nex

Nex (officially written as "nex" with a lowercase "n") is a suburban shopping mall in Serangoon, within the North-East Region of Singapore. The largest mall in the Northeast region and one of the largest suburban malls in the country, it has an integrated air-conditioned Serangoon Bus Interchange, the fifth bus interchange in Singapore which is air-conditioned.

History

Nex was built on an empty plot of land 25,007.70 square metres in size directly above the Serangoon MRT Station, and was envisaged to better utilise land use by incorporating the existing Serangoon Bus Interchange which neighbours the new mall and takes up a relatively large area of land. The land was on the Government Land Sale Programme Reserve List and was first put on public tender by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in 2003 as a 99-year leasehold white site, but it was not awarded. The LTA relaunched the site again on 7 December 2007 and when the tender closed on 26 March 2008, six bids were received, namely Gold Ridge Pte Ltd for $800,900,000.00, Serangoon Community Developments Pte Ltd for $727,000,000.00, FC Retail Trustee Pte Ltd (unit of Frasers Centrepoint) for $706,138,888.00, a joint venture comprising HSBC Institutional Trust Services (Singapore) Limited (trustee for CapitaMall Trust), NTUC Income Insurance Co-Operative Limited and NTUC Fairprice Co-Operative Limited for $660,926,828.00, a joint venture between City Ridgeview Pte Ltd (unit of City Developments), Hong Leong Holdings Limited and TID Pte Ltd for $401,000,000.00 and Peak Star Pte Ltd for $215,000,000.00. The land with a maximum gross floor area (GFA) of 87,527.00 square metres is thus awarded to Gold Ridge Pte Ltd on 28 March 2008 as the top bidder at a tendered price of S$9,150.32 per square metre of GFA.

Designed by SAA Architects, the mall was built by construction firm Low Keng Huat which was awarded the S$295 million contract on 25 November 2008 and the building broke ground in the same month. By April 2009, the owners has secured 30% occupancy commitments, and named the mall as "nex", which refers to "Northeast Exchange" in reference to its location and its site above a major transport node. By July 2009, 60% of the space has been leased out and Isetan has secured a 53,000-square-foot (4,900 m²) space as the anchor department store outlet. On 3 February 2010, the National Library Board announced that the Serangoon Public Library with 17,000 square feet (1,600 m²) of space and a start-up collection of about 150,000 will be opened in the mall. It opened on 11 March 2011.

The mall opened for its soft opening on 25 November 2010, and was officially opened on 21 April 2011.

Tenants

There are over 350 tenants, with several anchor tenants. The mall claims to be unique in housing several major competitors, in particular in having two supermarkets (Fairprice Xtra and Cold Storage and two food courts (Food Republic and Food Junction) in the same mall.

Some notable tenants include:

• 7-Eleven
• AIBI
• Build A Bear Workshop
• Cold Storage (Anchor)
• Courts (Anchor)
• Crystal Jade Kitchen
• Food Junction (Anchor)
• Food Republic (Anchor)
• HTC concept store
• Isetan (Anchor)
• LG concept store
• Kiddy Palace
• King & King Wong (Anchor)
• Serangoon Public Library (Anchor)
• Fairprice Xtra (Anchor)
• Party World KTV
• Pet Safari (Anchor)
• Popular Bookstore
• Shaw Theatres (Anchor)
• Shokutsu 10
• Starhub
• Swensen's
• Virtualand
• Yishion

While the tenant mix is not particularly unique, some stores have attempted in product differentiation. Isetan introduced a section dedicated to handbags and fashion labels from Japan and a range of cosmetics brands unavailable in competing malls in the vicinity. Guardian pharmacy introduced its first private patient care counselling room. Pet Lovers has its first rooftop dogrun. Tenants who opened their début outlets in Singapore include Freshness Burger and Kabe no Ana.

Facilities and amenities

The mall incorporates the five-bay Serangoon Bus Interchange on its basement level, with direct connections to Serangoon. Parts of the mall will remain permanently open for public access to transport facilities and to allow access to its 24-hr outlets such as McDonalds and Fairprice Xtra. However the lack of upgrading of the roads in the surrounding area leads to frequent traffic jams especially in the evenings and on weekends.

On Thursday, 25 August 2011, Land Transport Authority announced that Serangoon Bus Interchange, upcoming fifth fully air-conditioned Bus Interchange, will commence operation on 3 September 2011 except for bus services 81 and 82, behind nex mall.

The mall also has a SkyGarden situated on its rooftop. The SkyGarden comprises a children's playground (with dry and wet interactive play equipment) named KidzPlay and a dog park named K9 Park. K9 Park is the first dog park that is incorporated into a mall in Singapore. Dog owners are able to bring their pets into the mall via assigned lifts and escalators near the exterior of the mall. Only certain designated areas of the mall such as these are permitted to the pets. On the rooftop, there is also a DoggieStyle Cafe that allows the pet owners and their pets to have a meal together.