Singapore firm wins bid to design Bhubaneswar Town Centre

Bhubaneswar: Singapore-based Surbana Jurong on Tuesday won the bid to design the ambitious Bhubaneswar Town Centre (BTC), the first such transit-oriented development (TOD) project in the country.

According to official sources, the innovative design for the iconic project will cost over Rs 8 crore. It is being developed by Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) on around 12 acre.

As the project site shares its location with the city’s main railway station within the Bhubaneswar Town Centre Smart District, both East Coast Railway and Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited will be involved and consulted throughout the course of this project implementation, the sources said.

Shortlisted along with two other major design firms, the Singapore-based company won the bid for its unique blend of contemporary designs and traditional temple building architecture as the state capital is known for its Kalingan temple building style.

The company with revenue of 1.3billion USD and presence in over 40 countries across the globe has 110 site offices internationally and is one of the powerhouses for urban infrastructure design and consultancy in the world. Jurong, as it is commonly called, has drawn up master plans for 30 nations and 50 industrial parks worldwide. Some of its major projects were HDB Hub, Singapore, Clementi Mixed Development Singapore, Fusionopolis Singapore, MKH World Malayasia, Datum Jelatek Kuala Lumpur and Kigali CBD and Nyarugenge District Master plan Rwanda, the sources added.

ELEMENTS OF BTC

The BTC project will primarily have elements like theatre plaza, retail and malls, nature plaza, landscape, town plaza, art plaza, experience plaza and children’s plaza. “This will also have food courts, service apartments, pedestrianised streets along with dedicated pedestrian and cycling paths and the entire project would have an interactive as well as innovative environment,” said Additional Commissioner-Cum-Member Enforcement, BDA, Bhabani Shankar Chayani.

The multi-modal transit hub will include railway station, bus terminal, multi-level car parking, pedestrian plaza, convention centre, performance plaza, kids play area, art gallery, bicycle and pedestrian bridge, office building and last but not the least dedicated pick up and drop off lanes for taxi aggregators and auto-rickshaws, he added.

In December 2016, the Government of Odisha advised BDA to create a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the implementation of the Railway Station Multimodal Hub Project in Bhubaneswar — Bhubaneswar Town Centre Project. This SPV is a 100% subsidiary of BDA and will serve as a dedicated agency to ensure successful implementation of the project in the next five years.