Funan is a mixed used development comprising a retail mall, two office towers and a serviced apartment tower in the Civic District in Singapore. The new development was built on the site of the former building known as Funan DigitaLife Mall.
History
The original mall first opened in January 1985 as Funan Centre, which provided more options for shoppers to shop at other than Orchard Road. In the early 90s, the mall began to attract a critical mass of electronic and IT retailers over the years. Its main and long-time anchor tenant is Challenger Superstore, a major homegrown IT store established in 1984, taking up the entirety of the top floor. In 1992, the mall was refurbished. It later adopted the name Funan The IT Mall in 1997 to reflect its current focus on IT related products and gadgets. In 2005, the mall received minor upgrades, such as adding an external escalator and reconfiguring shops. It was then renamed again to Funan DigitaLife Mall upon completion of refurbishment works. In late 2015, the mall's owner, CapitalMall Trust, announced plans to redevelop the mall into an experimental creative hub on its site, comprising a retail mall, a serviced apartment tower and two office towers. To make way for the new development, Funan Digitalife Mall ceased operations on June 30, 2016 and was subsequently demolished by the end of that year.
Redevelopment
In September that year, Capitamalls Trust announced a landmark development replacing Funan Digitalife Mall, called Funan. The mall will comprise many firsts in Singapore, such as a dedicated 200 metre cycling lane on the first floor of the mall, a Golden Village cinema with multi-sensory experiences and a high techfood court with a conveyor belt system and self ordering kiosks by Kopitiam. It will also feature a rock climbing wall, operated by Climb Central, and online to offline shopping. One of the floors in the mall will be dedicated to IT products. There will also be sports facilities too, such as futsal courts and a swimming pool. The redeveloped Funan was initially slated for completion at the end of 2019. In April 2017, another slew of anchor tenants were announced, with the mall 25% leased. These include an 18,000 sq ft theatre by W!ld Rice, which will seat 380 people with an innovative thrust stage design, Carrie K, a local artisan jeweller, and Keepers, a collection of Singaporean artist designers. The latter two will set up a flagship location at the mall. 2 tenants of the previous building are also slated to return, including AddOn Systems and TK Photo. AddOn will operate Lenovo's largest service centre in Singapore and TK Photo will have a dedicated test zone for drone photography. Fairprice Finest will be the mall's supermarket operator, launching a futuristic supermarket that complements Funan's digital edge.
Opening
In September 2018, the opening date was announced to be brought forward to June 2019, as the building's construction works are progressing faster than expected. The development will use facial recognition technology to offer shoppers' recommendations, based on gender and age. Shoppers can also search for their car in the basement car parks, as there will be a video system that can record licence plates. New tenants announced include Brompton Bicycle, which will be its Singapore flagship store, a farm-to-table restaurant concept by Spa Esprit Group, gaming store GamePro, which will host eSports tournaments in a dedicated eSports zone, and Kopitiam's latest concept KOPItech, the world's first entire food court to accept e-payments in cryptocurrencies with mobile app Creatanium Wallet. Meanwhile, the development's serviced apartment component, lyf Singapore, opened in November 2019. The shopping mall had its soft opening in June 2019, and had its official opening in December that year.
