ORTO Yishun: What Happened to the Longkang Fishing Place

What was at ORTO Yishun

Before ORTO it was Bottle Tree Park, and half the island still called it that. The draw was that you could turn up with no plan. There were the shallow longkang streams where the kids waded in with nets, a covered yabby pond where you sat on the ledge with a rod and a bit of bait, 24-hour prawning under a zinc roof, a trampoline park, and a row of zi char and Thai places for when everyone got hungry at once. Nothing about it was polished. That was the whole point, and it is the same reason people still get sentimental about it, in the same way they do about the places in our Jurong childhood list.

Why ORTO Yishun closed

The land was always on borrowed time. ORTO vacated the site in June 2023 to make way for redevelopment, and HDB has since published the masterplan for what replaces it. The 70-hectare Chencharu site sits between Yishun Avenues 1 and 2 and Sembawang Road, it will hold about 10,000 new homes by 2040, and at least 80 per cent of those are public housing. The first BTO project there, around 1,270 units, launched in June 2024. The plan also includes a new park, an educational institution, a nursing home, and an integrated development with a hawker centre and a bus interchange. So the fishing ponds are not coming back to Yishun. Something a lot more useful to a lot more people is going up instead, which is a fair trade and still slightly sad.

Is ORTO still around

The name is. ORTO now operates at 27 West Coast Highway, Singapore 117867, directly across from Haw Par Villa MRT. It reads differently from the Yishun version though: their own directory lists dance studios, fencing, golf, cue sports and an escape room, plus four F&B outlets. Prawning and longkang fishing are not listed on ORTO's own site, so if that is the reason you are going, call ahead before you make the trip out west. We would rather tell you to check than send you there on a memory.

FAQs

Is ORTO Yishun still open?

No. ORTO vacated the Yishun site at the end of June 2023 so the land could be redeveloped.

What is being built where ORTO Yishun used to be?

Chencharu, a new HDB estate. HDB's masterplan covers 70 hectares between Yishun Avenues 1 and 2 and Sembawang Road, with about 10,000 homes by 2040, at least 80 per cent of them public housing, plus a new park and an integrated development with a hawker centre and bus interchange.

Where is ORTO now?

27 West Coast Highway, Singapore 117867, opposite Haw Par Villa MRT. It runs as a food and recreation hub with dance, fencing, golf, cue sports, an escape room and four F&B outlets.

Was ORTO the same place as Bottle Tree Park?

Same site. The Yishun plot was Bottle Tree Park before it was redeveloped into ORTO, which is why older Singaporeans still call it by the old name.