How an empty car park became a world-class swimming arena in under six months

Business Times

5 hours ago

[SINGAPORE] The task was as daunting as any that Ko Chee Wah, the chairman of Kin Productions, had faced in his long career.
In less than six months, his company had to construct, from scratch, a purpose-built facility that would be the main venue for this year's World Aquatics Championships (WCH) in Singapore, which will take place over three weeks from Jul 11.
The WCH Arena, as it is now called, is located on the site of a former open-air car park next to the Leisure Park Kallang mall, a short walk from the National Stadium.
The sheltered arena can accommodate up to 4,800 spectators and will be where most of the 2,500 athletes from nearly 200 countries and territories will compete. The competition features six aquatic disciplines: swimming, diving, high diving, open water swimming, artistic swimming and water polo.
Construction began in January, with foundation work starting a month earlier. The completion of the WCH Arena is on time to hold a test event (the South-east Asian Age Group Aquatics Championships) later this week, followed by the WCH itself next month. The arena will also host the World Aquatics Masters Championships' swimming and water polo events from Jul 26 to Aug 22.
Speaking to reporters during a tour of the arena on Monday (Jun 16), Ko said this was one of his agency's most challenging projects to date.
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'After we won the tender, we were told we had to deliver the contract in a maximum of six months. (The site was) an empty car park of about 250,000 square feet, and we had to build this big facility for the public and athletes – one that meets international safety standards and conforms to all the regulatory requirements,' he said.
Kin Productions chairman Ko Chee Wah said the construction and delivery of the new WCH Arena was one of his company's most challenging projects to date. PHOTO: WCH
There were other issues to deal with too, such as the frequent bouts of inclement weather in the first few weeks of the year that caused some delays to the building process.
Long before the design and construction began, Ko and his team also accompanied officials from national sports agency Sport Singapore and governing body Singapore Aquatics on visits to major swimming events in cities such as Fukuoka and Doha, to study how such international meets were staged.
One of the key features of the WCH Arena is how the seats have been positioned at a 32-degree angle, meant to give spectators a much better viewing experience. The seats for other events in Singapore are usually at the standard 17-degree angle.
The competition pool holds 3.9 million litres of water, which is kept at a constant temperature between 25 and 28 degrees Celsius. It took an entire week to fill the pool.
Former national swimmer Mark Chay, the co-chair of the WCH Singapore organising committee, said that discussions are still ongoing as to what will happen to the arena – which was built as a temporary facility – after the competition is over.
There is some talk that Singapore Aquatics could make use of the arena to prepare for competitions, such as the next SEA Games that Singapore will host in 2029.
When asked about the final cost to build the arena and whether it was within budget, Chay chose not to disclose any figures at this point. He would only let on that what the government spent was 'comparable' to what it cost Fukuoka and Doha to stage the World Aquatic Championships in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
'We looked at the cost of (what those two cities spent) and we did our own assessments. For those championships, they built temporary venues for all the events. In Singapore, we are using the existing OCBC Aquatics Centre, and we built this WCH Arena. We are having some events at Sentosa too,' said Chay.
On Monday, it was also announced that Singtel is the official connectivity partner of the WCH 2025. The telco will provide 'seamless, secure and high-performance connectivity' across multiple competition venues, said Singtel Singapore chief executive officer Ng Tian Chong.