History
The current building sits on reclaimed land first occupied by the Marine Parade Community Centre, which was built in the early 1980s and later renamed to Marine Parade Community Club. In March 1995, the People's Association (PA) announced plans to spend S$9.56 million to upgrade 54 community centres and clubs that were over ten years old, adding facilities such as lifts, dance studios, karaoke rooms and multi-purpose air-conditioned activities rooms, in order to make community centres more user-friendly, with open concept offices and reception areas.
In June 1995, then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong asked PA to study the idea of having community centres share their premises with other civil users such as libraries, government offices and commercial developments. Goh, who is also a Member of Parliament for Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency, suggested combining the Marine Parade Community Club, which was slated for upgrading, with the National Library branch in Marine Parade, in a six-storey building with three floors for the community club and three for the library. In June 1996, Wong Kan Seng, PA's deputy chairman, announced that due to the scarcity of land in Singapore, eight of the redeveloped community centres, including Marine Parade Community Club, would be located with other civil users.
As 30% of the upgrading cost had to be paid by the community club, several fundraising activities were carried out for the redevelopment. These activities, which included music concerts, golf tournaments and cyclethons, raised a total of S$6 million. The old club building was demolished in 1997 and construction of the Marine Parade Community Building began the same year. SAL Construction was the project's main contractor. Built at a cost of S$30 million, the new building was completed in January 2000, and was open to the public on 6 March 2000. It was officially opened by Goh Chok Tong on 28 May 2000.
Read more about this topic: Marine Parade Community Building
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)