SINGAPORE – Residents in Bukit Batok West will soon have another dining option when a new hawker centre opens in the second quarter of 2025.
Dr Amy Khor, who is MP for Hong Kah North SMC, said in a Facebook post on March 1 that the Bukit Batok West Hawker Centre will be on the ground floor of Harmony Village @ Bukit Batok - Singapore’s pilot batch of assisted-living flats.
The hawker centre will have 22 cooked food stalls and about 90 tables, which can seat more than 400 people, she added.
Construction of the hawker centre will likely be completed at the end of 2024. The National Environment Agency (NEA) has called for a tender through the Government’s GeBIZ system on Feb 28 for an operator to manage it.
Applications close on April 11.
The hawker centre was first announced in 2015 by the then Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, which said one will be built in Bukit Batok town by 2027.
It was only in 2019 that the ministry gave further details on its location.
A Straits Times forum letter published in December 2020 called for a hawker centre to be built in Bukit Batok as residents are served by only air-conditioned foodcourts and coffee shops, both of which charge higher prices because of higher rentals.
NEA responded to the letter in January 2021, saying that various factors have to be considered before sites can be earmarked as potential hawker centres.
“In built-up towns such as Bukit Batok, there are more limited sites for development,” it had said, adding that it also looks at existing food options and the projected population growth in an area.
Harmony Village @ Bukit Batok, which has 169 community care apartments in a 15-storey block, caters to those aged 65 and older.
It was originally slated for completion in the second quarter of 2024, but that was pushed back to between September and October due to “unsatisfactory site progress” by the project’s main contractor, JSM Construction Group, whose services the Housing Board terminated.
HDB then appointed Qingjian International (South Pacific) Group Development Co to take over the project on Feb 14, 2023.
