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Home to the international arbitration centre, the Maxwell Chambers building (pictured) in Tanjong Pagar will be expanded to boost Singapore’s status as an international dispute resolution hub.
The expansion will see 120,000 sq ft added to its floor space, tripling the current size of the centre. This also includes taking over the nearby Red Dot Traffic Building in May this year.
Built in 1928, the conserved heritage building on 28 Maxwell Road served as the Singapore Traffic Police Headquarters till 1999. It reopened in 2005 with red hues and the Red Dot Design Museum as one of its bigger tenants, reported The Straits Times.
Restoration work is scheduled to start in May and is expected to be completed in 2019, with award-winning architect Mok Wei Wei leading the restoration.
The Ministry of Law revealed that the new building will “house, over four floors, about 50 new offices for international dispute resolution institutions, arbitration chambers, law firms and ancillary legal services”.
The existing building, on the other hand, will house hearing and preparation rooms for commercial dispute resolution cases.
For easy access between hearing rooms and offices, the two buildings will be connected by an overhead link-bridge.
Established in 2010, Maxwell Chambers has emerged as one the most preferred hearing facilities in the world, with 212 arbitration cases heard there last year, up from 179 in 2015.
The ministry noted that the expansion will address calls from existing tenants for space to grow their operations.
“One of Singapore’s key strengths as an international dispute resolution centre is our legal system which is neutral, stable, has high quality jurisprudence and is trusted by businesses,” said Indranee Rajah, Senior Minister of State for Law.
“We will build on this and strengthen our eco-system of laws, lawyers, institutions and infrastructure, so that we can better serve the needs of businesses and take our international dispute resolution services to the next level.”
Image source: Nicolas Lannuzel, Wikimedia Commons
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
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