National school sports events, more community activities planned for Sports Hub after takeover: SportSG

SINGAPORE — Sport Singapore (SportSG), the government agency set to take over management of the Singapore Sports Hub on Dec 9, has unveiled plans to bring the National School Games back to the National Stadium, turn the hub located in Kallang into a "home for school sports" and hold regular open houses for the community.

SportSG's chief executive officer Lim Teck Yin said on Friday (June 10): "It's an exciting development that we can all be looking forward to.

"With this move, we intend to drive stronger social, sporting and economic outcomes for Singaporeans to maximise the potential of the precinct and to take a stronger hand in developing our local sport and lifestyle industry ecosystem."

The plans were part of a press conference to announce the termination of the public-private partnership with the SportsHub Pte Ltd consortium 13 years ahead of time.

Mr Lim said that by taking over the Singapore Sports Hub, SportSG will have greater autonomy to drive "stronger affinity and value for Singaporeans" and build synergy with other facilities and projects in the Kallang area.

Rejuvenation efforts of the area — dubbed Kallang Alive — were first announced in 2019 and include a green community space called Benaan Kapal Green, a Youth Hub, Kallang Football Hub, Kallang Theatre Integrated Development and Kallang Tennis Centre.

Kallang Football Hub is set to complete this year, while Kallang Tennis Centre will be completed in 2023. The Kallang Alive project was set to be completed by 2025.

Noting that Singapore is also bidding for the World Athletics Championships, Mr Lim said that such synergy in the precinct will help greatly should the opportunity to host arise.

For example, it will be able to rope in nearby facilities for large-scale events.

“The commercial opportunities from that synergy must be harnessed to be able to make the event affordable and commercially viable... we will have that full flexibility to be able to operate across the entire range of logistics, food-and-beverage concessions and fringe activities.”

Such events will create a development of "community play", he added.

Citing a large-scale tennis event such as an ATP Masters 1000 event, for example, Mr Lim said that this will create a "strong build-up... of youth tennis, regional tennis competitions, inter-club tennis as well as a higher level of professional competition as and when the event is coming to town".

He also said that the takeover will allow for "enhanced programming as well as an enhancement to the events (hosted)".

There will be “pathway programmes that lead to pipeline and elite programmes for Team Singapore” as well, he added.

“When I talk about pathway programmes for children and youth, I’m really referring to the many academies and clubs that we run, that will be able to see many of their programmes and development centres take root here as well.

“In addition, we have a very strong experience in programming and the development of interest groups for sport, be they interest groups for badminton, tennis, table tennis, that will also feature here.”