Change Alley (Singapore)

Change Alley Aerial Plaza with its significant revolving tower.

Change Alley at the Chevron House section of the shopping arcade.

Change Alley (Chinese: 真者里) is a cluster of shops in the financial district of Raffles Place in Downtown Core planning area in Singapore. It links Raffles Place to Collyer Quay. The place is named after the Change Alley of London, where stockbrokers congregated.

The alley has a tenant mix of fashion, food, jewellery and services. The shopping arcade is divided into two zones, the Change Alley Aerial Plaza (真者里大厦) which is an overhead bridge crossing Collyer Quay (Clifford Pier to Hitachi Tower) and the Change Alley which is located inside Hitachi Tower and Chevron House. The place was a major shopping mall in the city for decades, used to sell a wide range of goods. Before getting its present name in the late 19th century, it was known as Spottiswoode Lane (史波蒂斯兀巷).

The shopkeepers belong to an association called the Change Alley Merchants Association. The members conduct business in various languages, using broken French, English, Italian and Russian, derived from years of dealing with seamen and tourists. The street's name is also thought to derive from the money changers who frequented this area in the days when visitors and seafarers arrived at the waterfront and made their way to Raffles Place through the alley.

The Change Alley Aerial Plaza was built of prefabricated rolled steel section frames, the material is not very visually evident. The architect, K.K. Tan & Associates, planned to keep a low profile within the environment of skyscrapers and exploit both the view of Marina Bay, and the pedestrian traffic in the area, hence the revolving tower and glass bridge. The aerial plaza is a result of the third sale of sites from the Urban Redevelopment Authority in 1970.

Currently, the aerial plaza has a low occupancy and has a slow shopper traffic due to the tenant mix. The main area of the shopping mall is at the Hitachi Tower/ Chevron House area, where there is a mix of restaurants and retail shops, with services stores. On the sixth and seventh floors houses a Planet Fitness gym.

As of 2009, the Change Alley revolving tower is undergoing a renovation, along with much of Change Alley itself as a long-overdue refurbishment to the complex. The revolving tower will house restaurants and will be connected to the new Overseas Union House complex, currently under construction, when completed in 2010.

References

• Victor R Savage, Brenda S A Yeoh (2004), Toponymics - A Study of Singapore Street Names, Eastern University Press, ISBN 981-210-364-3
• Norman Edwards and Peter Keys, Times Books International (1996), Singapore: A Guide to Buildings, Streets and Places, ISBN 981-204-781-6

External links

• Change Alley Merchants Association