5 Singapore Malls That Closed Down: JCube, Peace Centre and More
4 August 2026
Five Singapore malls that are gone: JCube closed on 6 August 2023, Peace Centre on 28 January 2024, Liang Court on 1 April 2020, Specialists' Shopping Centre in 2007 and Tanglin Shopping Centre was emptied and torn down in 2024. Between them they held an Olympic-size ice rink, the first IMAX screen outside town, the first mall on Orchard Road and a Kinokuniya that ran for 32 years.
JCube in Jurong East ran from 2 April 2012 to 6 August 2023, which makes it the youngest mall on this list by a long way: 11 years and it was gone. Specialists' Shopping Centre on Orchard Road opened in 1972 and shut in 2007, with John Little closing its branch there on 9 July that year before the building came down in early 2008. Liang Court opened on 20 January 1984 and closed on 1 April 2020. Peace Centre on Selegie Road opened in the mid 1970s and saw its last trading day on 28 January 2024. Tanglin Shopping Centre opened in 1972 and was demolished in 2024 after 52 years. Four of the five went the same way, an en bloc sale followed by a condo, which is its own kind of Singapore story. If you want more of this feeling, our list of childhood online games and whether they still work covers the other half of growing up here.
JCube: the ice rink and the suburban IMAX
The Rink was the point of JCube. CapitaLand built it with the Singapore Sports Council as a non-profit Olympic-size ice rink, and for a decade it was where west-side kids had birthday parties and fell over in front of strangers. The mall also had Singapore's first IMAX screen outside the city centre. CapitaLand announced the redevelopment on 7 February 2023 and the mall closed that August. What is going up is J'den, a 40-storey residential tower with shops on the first two floors, targeted for completion in 2027. If you still want ice, Kallang Ice World at Leisure Park Kallang is the public rink left in Singapore, and Ice Penguin at Clarke Quay is a synthetic rink that opened in March 2026.
Peace Centre and Tanglin Shopping Centre: two long goodbyes
Peace Centre had several lives. KTV lounges, then tuition centres, then in its final years a thrift and vintage crowd that treated the half-empty units as cheap studio space. After the $650 million en bloc sale the demolition kept getting pushed back, and the developer let a project called PlayPan turn the empty mall into a creative playground from October 2023 until it shut for good on 28 January 2024. That thrift crowd did not disappear, it moved, and a lot of it now sits in the Bugis Street level 2 thrift market.Photo: ProjectManhattan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)Tanglin Shopping Centre was the opposite, quiet and specialised right to the end: antique dealers, carpet shops, camera and audio stores, travel agents. Pacific Eagle Real Estate bought it for $868 million in February 2022, tenants moved out over the following two years, and the building was demolished in 2024.Photo: Terence Ong via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)
Liang Court and Specialists': the Kinokuniya and the first Orchard mall
Liang Court was the Japanese one. Daimaru anchored it from 1984 until 2003, Meidi-Ya took over the supermarket after that, and the Kinokuniya there ran for 32 years before closing in April 2019, a year before the mall itself. The site is now CanningHill Piers, two residential towers with a retail podium called CanningHill Square and a Moxy hotel.Photo: Terence Ong via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)Specialists' Shopping Centre is the one most people have forgotten, which is unfair, because it was the first shopping centre on Orchard Road. It opened in 1972 on the site of the old Pavilion Theatre, ran about 70 shops with John Little as the anchor, and had Hotel Phoenix attached behind it. It closed in 2007 and was demolished between January and March 2008. Orchard Gateway was built there and opened in 2014, so if you have walked through the glass bridge over Orchard Road, you have walked over it.
Good to know
· Kallang Ice World at Leisure Park Kallang is the public ice rink still running. Ice Penguin at Clarke Quay is synthetic ice, not the real thing.
· Kinokuniya's Liang Court branch is gone, but the main store at Ngee Ann City is still the big one.
· This was Part 1 on our Instagram, so there is a second batch of closed malls coming.
FAQs
Why did JCube close?
CapitaLand announced on 7 February 2023 that it would redevelop the site, and JCube closed on 6 August 2023 after 11 years. A 40-storey residential development called J'den is being built there, with shops on the first two floors and completion targeted for 2027.
Where can I go ice skating in Singapore now that The Rink at JCube is gone?
Kallang Ice World at Leisure Park Kallang is the public ice rink in Singapore. Ice Penguin at Clarke Quay opened in March 2026 and uses synthetic ice rather than real ice.
When did Peace Centre close?
Peace Centre saw its last trading day on 28 January 2024. It had already been sold en bloc for $650 million, and in its last months a project called PlayPan ran the empty mall as a creative space from October 2023.
What replaced Liang Court?
CanningHill Piers, a development between Fort Canning Hill and the Singapore River with two residential towers, a retail podium called CanningHill Square, a Moxy hotel and serviced residences.
What was the first shopping mall on Orchard Road?
Specialists' Shopping Centre, which opened in 1972 on the site of the Pavilion Theatre with John Little as its anchor tenant. It closed in 2007, was demolished in early 2008, and Orchard Gateway now stands there.
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