The old Woodlands Town Centre, with its proximity to the checkpoint and the causeway, could have been thought of as a border post.
It certainly felt like it, with scores of folks crossing the causeway from Johor Bahru – many on foot – thronging the busy bus terminal and the shops in the old centre. Completed in 1980/81, the centre belonged to the generation of Housing and Development Board (HDB) designs that followed on the second generation Ang Mo Kio, Bedok and Clementi New Town projects.
A unique feature the town centre was given was a bazaar, which house 88 shops resettled from the length of Woodlands Road. The town centre’s air-conditioned shopping complex could also be thought of as a pioneering attempt by the HDB to venture into shopping complex development.
Vacated in 2017, its proximity to the causeway was probably a contribution to its demise – part the the site which the now demolished centre occupies will be used to build an extension to the especially busy Woodlands Checkpoint.
A plan of Woodlands Town Centre (source: HDB).
Photographs:
The old bus terminal.
Woodlands Cinema.
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