Orchard Road / Dhoby Ghaut

The Offices

Orchard Road is a prime office location for many industries that are not primarily related to the financial sector, although some investment companies have offices here as well. The location is popular with multinational companies from a wide variety of sectors, including trading, professional services and fashion. The premium office buildings on Orchard Road are Wheelock Place, Ngee Ann City, Wisma Atria, The Hereen and Winsland House. There are many good quality mid-range buildings on this location including Shaw House, Palais Renaissance, Liat Towers, Orchard Building and TripleOne Somerset. For economy leasing options, Tanglin Shopping Centre, Orchard Tower, Shaw Centre, Thong Teck Building and 51 Cuppage Road (fka Starhub Centre) are popular choices. Some office buildings are more biased towards clinics and surgeries such as The Paragon and International Building.

The lower end of Orchard Road becomes the Dhoby Ghaut district. There are fewer office buildings in this area but can boast to being the location of the new home of Swiss banking giant UBS. This bank leased the entire development at 9 Penang Road (formerly Park Mall) totaling some 320,000 sq ft. Another major office building this area includes The Atrium, which is predominately occupied by Temasek Holdings. The area is also the site of one of the oldest office buildings in Singapore, namely McDonald House built in 1949. It was the first building in South East Asia to have air-conditioning. Haw Par Centre on Clemenceau Avenue is also close by.

The Amenities

Orchard Road is a bustling thoroughfare served by 3 MRT stations namely Orchard Road, Somerset and Dhoby Ghaut MRT. There are numerous bus routes running through the center of this district and the connectivity is one of the strongest advantages of this location. There are many luxury hotels in this area including The St Regis, The Hilton Hotel, Marriott Hotel, Grand Hyatt and Meritus Mandarin. Good quality mid-range hotels include Orchard Hotel, Orchard Parade Hotel, Grand Park Hotel, Royal Plaza on Scotts. The major retail outlets are Ngee Ann City, Wisma Atrium, ION Orchard, The Paragon, Lucky Plaza, Centrepoint and 313 Somerset. There are cinema complexes at Shaw Centre, Cineleisure Orchard and The Cathy complex. There are food courts in all major shopping centers, as well as many of the smaller buildings.

Further down Orchard Road, in the Dhoby Ghaut area, the premium shopping mall here is Plaza Singapura, with other lower grade malls including PoMo, Selegie Centre and Peace Centre. The main hotels in this area are Rendezvous Hotel and Hotel Fort Canning.

The History

In the 1830s, Orchard Road was the scene of gambier and pepper plantations. Later, nutmeg plantations and fruit orchards predominated, hence its name. By 1846, the spread of houses had reached up to Tank Road. There were none on the left side and only three or four houses went past Tank Road on the right side of Orchard Road. One major sight during this period was a Dr. Jun tending his garden, which helped endorse the road's name. He had a garden and plantation at the corner of what is now Scotts Road and Orchard Road.

Towards the later part of the 1840s, graveyards began to appear along the road. By 1846, the Chinese had a large graveyard around what is now the Meritus Mandarin Hotel and Ngee Ann City, while the Sumatrans from Bencoolen had their burial ground where the current Hotel Grand Central stands. Later a Jewish cemetery was established; it was located where Dhoby Ghaut MRT station is now and was demolished in 1984.

In the 1860s, Orchard Road had a great number of private houses and bungalows on hills looking down through the valley where the road passed through. Early in the 1890s, King Chulalongkorn, the then King of Siam, acquired "Hurricane House" in the vicinity of Orchard Road through Tan Kim Ching, the Thai Consul in Singapore. Two further pieces of adjoining property were added later and these subsequently became the site of the Royal Thai Embassy at 370 Orchard Road.