Smaller fields, fewer sports facilities at new home of Turf City’s football pitch operator

“CRAZY EXPENSIVE”

“Building a new facility in the current climate is crazy expensive now,” Mr Mulani said.

“It is also painful for us to only be able to cater to a small percentage of our current customers. This creates customer service issues.”

He added that the new sports facility will have to “blend into the environment that is Dempsey”. 

The Dempsey area is filled with shops and restaurants, unlike Turf City where The Cage’s neighbour is Rainforest Sports Hub.

Rainforest Sports Hub has been awarded a parcel of land near Haw Par Villa MRT station.

FOUR-YEAR TRANSITION

Only one tenant in Turf City will be allowed to stay beyond the Dec 31 deadline. Blue Dolphin Gallery, an equestrian operator, has been given a three-month temporary occupation licence due to delays in getting ready its new home at 8 Admiralty Road East.

Turf City is zoned for residential use, with plans for a new neighbourhood. Its tenants have been given two successive 18-month tenancy extensions up to Dec 31 to give them more time to firm up their transition plans.

“Since 2019, agencies have engaged tenants regularly on the need to vacate the site to facilitate redevelopment,” said the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), Sport Singapore (SportSG) and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) in a joint press release on Thursday.

As part of efforts to support affected tenants, the government made available more than 20 new sites through public tenders to provide additional relocation options for tenants.

The sites are located across Singapore, ranging in size from over 8,000 sq ft to 1.6 hectares. They support a variety of uses, such as childcare, sports, and mixed uses.

The joint release said SportSG has been working closely with relevant agencies to identify sites that can be progressively tendered out for sports use, adding that this would attract good proposals to “better engage communities through sport”.

“For example, WWTBF’s proposal envisaged the 10A Harding Road site as an engaging and vibrant multi-sports facility, with a line-up of regular sports programmes involving diverse communities,” said the authorities.

To complement the strategies under the Sports Facilities Master Plan, SportSG aims to “increase the network of sport and play spaces beyond the provision of public sport facilities”.

Mr Mulani said he hopes more parcels of land will be opened up for sports. WWTBF plans to bid for some of these sites, with the director saying that there is “good appetite for more sports offerings, especially 11-a-side amateur football”.

“While we understand that land in Singapore is precious and the authorities have bigger plans for the space we currently operate at Turf City, it is a real shame to see the sports momentum we have built at Turf City come to an abrupt stop as we cannot cater to it,” he added.

“We are only able to build a much smaller sports park at Dempsey.”