Warehouse space grows as arts hub

Landlord Mapletree has doubled the number of arts tenants at Tanjong Pagar Distripark from seven in 2022 to 16 in 2025

- Clement Yong

Warehouse space Tanjong Pagar Distripark (TPD), where the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is located, is becoming a hub not just for art, but also theatre and dance presentations.

Shedding its previous identity as a logistics hub servicing Keppel Terminal, the two industrial buildings overlooking the Singapore Strait have in three years more than doubled the space's number of arts tenants, from seven in 2022 to 16 now.

The latest openings are in Block 37, next to Block 39, where SAM anchors a cluster of independent galleries and auction houses. Landlord Mapletree has been sprucing up Level 4 of this more outdated sister block.

Dance collective Sigma Contemporary Dance, relocating from nearby Raeburn Park, will open its new home in Block 37 in October. It will be the second performing arts company to open at TPD in recent months, with Tamil theatre company Agam Theatre Lab in April raising $450,000 for the community's first 110-seat black box theatre.

Sigma Contemporary Dance artistic director Guofeng Hong was appraising his new 1,680 sq ft unit on June 17 – still to be fitted with sprung floor, mirrors and light trusses – and told The Straits Times: "Space is so precious in Singapore."