3 more JCs to go high-rise when their new campuses open in 2028

Three more junior colleges (JCs) will join Eunoia JC (EJC) and go high-rise when their new campuses open in January 2028.

The three JCs – Temasek JC (TJC), Anderson Serangoon JC (ASRJC) and Jurong Pioneer JC (JPJC) – will move into new campuses that will occupy smaller land sites but will have buildings that go up to 12 storeys, tender documents obtained by The Straits Times show.

EJC, which opened in 2020, has a campus that comprises 12- and 10-storey blocks.

Despite occupying smaller site areas than the campuses they replace, the new campuses will have more total floor space. They will also have a track and field – something that is common across almost all of Singapore’s pre-university campuses.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced in March 2019 that campuses of older JCs would be upgraded or rebuilt as part of the JC Rejuvenation Programme.

An MOE spokesperson said in 2022 that the ministry is “studying the possibility of smaller campus footprint based on high-rise designs to maximise land use”.

A construction tender for TJC was called on Oct 14, and MOE told ST on Oct 28 that design work for the ASRJC and JPJC campuses is under way and “will be completed progressively over the next few months”.

MOE’s construction tender documents show that the new TJC campus at 22 Bedok South Road will have a site area of about 4½.ha, and have a gross floor area of around 50,900 sq m.

Its old campus, which opened in 1977 and will be demolished, occupies an 8.4ha site and has a gross floor area of roughly 33,300 sq m, according to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Designed by CPG Consultants, TJC’s new campus will have a 12-storey block that will house administration spaces and special teaching rooms, such as a music hub and science laboratories.

The school will also have a six-storey block with a parade square, auditorium, canteen and indoor sports hall, among other facilities. A separate nine-storey block will house seminar and tutorial rooms.

Overlooking the school’s track and field will be a two-storey block with a spectator gallery, as well as two covered basketball courts and tennis courts, which will be next to a single-storey block that houses an indoor shooting range.

About 3.3ha of the school’s original site will be returned to the state and taken over by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). The land currently remains zoned for education use in URA’s Master Plan 2019.

A portion of the new TJC campus will also be built on a site currently occupied by Katong Flower Shop, which started operating there at the end of 2018.

The shop’s managing director, Mr Royston Low, 66, said the nursery’s current lease expires at end-2026.

MOE’s tender documents for ASRJC show that the new campus, which replaces the former Anderson JC campus at 4500 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6 that opened in 1984, will occupy an area of about 4.2ha, and have a gross floor area of roughly 40,500 sq m.

It will replace the old 5.9ha campus, which had a gross floor area of about 27,000 sq m. About 1.6ha of the site will be returned to SLA after the campus is demolished.

The land that is to be returned was rezoned to become a “reserve site” in 2022, indicating that its specific use has yet to be determined.

ASRJC’s new campus, which is designed by CPG Consultants, will comprise a nine-storey block with facilities such as a canteen, parade square, and multipurpose and indoor sports halls, among other amenities. It will also have two 11-storey blocks with administration and teaching spaces.

As for the new JPJC campus at 800 Corporation Road, it will occupy a site with an area of about 4.1ha. This is smaller than the 6.6ha site that Jurong JC (JJC) formerly occupied.

The new campus will have about 40,400 sq m of gross floor area, which is larger than the 24,900 sq m in the old campus.

Designed by DP Architects, the campus will have a 12-storey block with teaching spaces, and two six-storey blocks that include sports facilities.

The campus will be next to an upcoming Jurong Region Line MRT station, which is slated to open in 2027.

Mr Noel Ng, 46, who graduated from JJC in 1996, recalls that the school was known as “the aircon JC” during his time as a student there as it was among the few schools that were fully air-conditioned.

This was because there were often aircraft flying near the school, and the noise made keeping windows and doors open impractical, said Mr Ng, a civil engineer.

Dr Woo Jun Jie, a senior lecturer at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said given space constraints, it was inevitable that high-rise school campuses would be built here.

These high-rise school buildings are also found in other cities that face land constraints, such as the 14-storey Singapore International School in Hong Kong, he said.

But Dr Woo also flagged some issues that could arise from high-rise schools, which include ensuring that there is sufficient space for outdoor activities, and sufficient light and airflow.

Now that the campus site areas are smaller, he suggested converting the extra land returned to the state into parks or green spaces that residents and students can enjoy.

“For schools and students, the actual design of the school, rather than whether it is high-rise or low-rise, will play a (more) important role in creating an attractive and conducive environment for learning,” he said.

Former EJC student Liu Yang, 20, said attending a high-rise school meant sometimes enduring long waits for the lift, such as after morning assembly.

But otherwise it “didn’t feel like anything out of the ordinary”, he said.

“We’re used to being in high-rise buildings, it’s like being in an HDB block or shopping mall.”