Earmarked to give way to an MRT station, the Ampang Park Shopping Centre may survive after all. MRT Corp has released a statement detailing a reviewed design for the Ampang Park MRT station that will see the old mall stay put, while ensuring that commuters can conveniently transfer between MRT and LRT stations.
This follows meetings between MRT Corp and the mall’s strata unit owners and management corporation held last month. On Tuesday, MRT Corp presented a reviewed design option to the stakeholders. Among the features are:
- The future Ampang Park MRT Station will be shifted slightly away from the Ampang Park Shopping Centre location
- An underground pedestrian linkway between the future Ampang Park MRT Station and the existing Ampang Park LRT Station, and MRT tunnel for the MRT trains, need to be built beneath Ampang Park Shopping Centre
- Work also has to be carried out to modify the foundations of the Ampang Park Shopping Centre, called “underpinning”, to strengthen the foundation of Ampang Park Shopping Centre and to enable the safe construction of the underground walkway
- Certain areas of the basement carpark and ground floor of the Ampang Park Shopping Centre will be required temporarily to accommodate construction work. Those areas of the basement carparks will be required up to 36 months, while the affected areas of the ground floor will be required up to 18 months
- Businesses operating at areas required for construction will have to be closed for the duration of the construction and the appropriate compensation will be paid. For the other shoplots which are unaffected by the construction, business can operate as usual
- With the new design option, commuters will have to walk farther compared to the original design when transferring between the Ampang Park MRT Station and Ampang Park LRT Station. The “paid area to paid area” connection is maintained
A comparison between the original design and reviewed design is summarised in the table below.
As seen on the last point in the table, MRT Corp says that even with the new design option, a mutual agreement (MA) will still need to be drawn up between MRT Corp and the strata unit owners. This is to fulfil the legal requirements for the underground linkway and MRT railway tunnel to co-exist with the mall.
There will be a need for 100% agreement from all strata unit owners for the MA to be implemented. This is to enable the underground land, which is common property belonging to all strata unit owners, to be surrendered to the government so that the underground walkway and MRT tunnels can be built. MRT Corp says that the MA should be signed by January 31, 2016 for this option to take effect. Otherwise, it’s plan A.
To recap, plan A was for the mall to be torn down as the planned Ampang Park station with five storeys fully underground will be built directly under two-thirds of the mall. Besides safety reasons, MRT Corp explained that it would not be feasible to allow one-third of the mall to remain standing during MRT construction work as the support system for the building is centralised.
The Ampang Park MRT Station is a very important station for the MRT Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya Line, being the only point where commuters can transfer from to the Kelana Jaya LRT line. The Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) gave its approval for the second MRT line (after Sungai Buloh-Kajang) late last month, and construction is expected to start in June 2016.
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the needs of the many outweighs the few.
i think the new station degrades the station for the benefit of the few traders instead of millions of people that will use the system.
Agree. This plan is to meet future public transport needs for the thousands, or maybe millions. Why should we bow to a few greedy traders, on the pretex of ‘sentimental value’ to ruin a good plan? Yes, I too have memories there. But hey, it’s just a normal shopping complex, which is not a ‘cultural building’ nor an artistic landmark of Kuala Lumpur. Would you recommend a tourist to visit the Ampang Complex? What is so special there? Do you see it in Post Cards?
Probably in the 80s it was a ‘happening place’ to be, together with Campbell shopping complex and Pertama complex. But now we have so many other Mega Shopping Complexes in Kuala Lumpur.
So in my opinion too, for the future convinience of the people in and around Kuala Lumpur, down with the Ampang Complex, up with the new MRT station.
In another words means thanks to politicians and rakyat power, there is no longer full integration of both rails at Ampang and users have to walk more between both stations, which means pipu will complain not efficient, crony, corrupt, useless, ini semua salah najib, which means possibly less pipu use both rails to Ampang, which means Oppo now can use this bullet in future to bash Gov cuz of building useless MRT, which means they winliaolor! I see what they did there…
As u can see, oppo politicians are smart educated people. They just dont have the country’s coffers. Imagine the good things they can achieve for malaysia if they ruled instead of the dimwitted men and women in charge.
I don’t know if this will be an added cost to the budget if MRT Corp were to go ahead.
If it does, this only shows how weak the government is in dealing with small number of people. That building is not even a heritage building.
No it just shows how powerful rakyat power and loadmouth politicians are now. Dun say Gov no listen to rakyat now. Just like in TTDI
Hahahah what does this have to do with opposition parties? The owners themselves objected.
They should use the land acquisition act on your home, see how you feel
sentimental value vs future convenience value. i think we should not be too sentimental on ampang park.
MRT is the new beginning for Malaysia’s public network, lets just do everything right from the beginning i.e. to achieve total convenience for the commuters – by having integrated station, shorter walking distance etc.. in fact once the MRT is finished, the new ampang park shopping centre will have a lot more traffic from commuters passing by than they are now.
Thanks for ruining the seamless interchange station. Now have to walk further and its not intergrated
Thank you Party Hard! You are the only rakyat voice! Others voices jangan persoal atau kasi Bersih sama lu!
Yeah, go ahead with plan B. Malaysian are obese anyways and need the extra exercise. Install a travelator like in KLIA2, those complaining never actually walk the length of KLIA2 just to cross the bridge and scheduling system that hell bent to put your plane farthest possible.
Is there any way for the commuter to have a say in this fight as well, after all they are part of the stakeholder here.
Terrible decision to sacrifice the many million for a very long time compared to the few (traders) for a limited time, they were even promised a replacement slot in the new mall as proposed in the first design.
Agree that Ampang Park should make way for shorter walking distance….the longer you walk on Malaysia road, the higher chance u get…snatched, robbed, bullied, etc….
I think original design is better, a mall that is integrated with MRT.
Yes, Ampang Park should let go. if people visit Ampang Park it self, even kit also don’t like it, nothing worth to keep, built new shopping complex integrated future MRT much worth.
this MRT will use for 50-60 year, for benefit billions passenger for 50 year, for future efficiency integration Ampang park should be let it go.
Please follow plan A (original plan)