SINGAPORE - The Jurong Country Club site will be where the terminus of the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur high-speed rail (HSR) will be located.
The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) has gazetted the acquisition of the 67ha plot and the club will be expected to hand over the land by November 2016, the Government said on Monday.
With the terminus expected to occupy only about 12 ha - or around 18 per cent - of the total area, the remaining land will be transformed into a mixed-use development comprising offices, hotels, retail and residences.
This is in line with plans to transform Jurong East into Singapore's second Central Business District, with high-speed rail commuters being able to travel to and from KL in just 90 minutes.
Urban Redevelopment Authority chief executive Ng Lang said on Monday: "The high-speed rail... will not exist in isolation. You'll need supporting amenities and infrastructure, and you will need a sizeable piece of land for this purpose."
While technical studies will be conducted to decide the exact location of the HSR terminus, it will be no further than 600 metres from the current Jurong East MRT station and connected by linkways, the Government said.
Two upcoming MRT lines, the Jurong Region Line and the Cross Island Line, which will be completed in 2025 and 2030 respectively, will also be within accessible distance of the new terminus.
Authorities also said that Customs, Immigration and Quarantine complex will be located inside the terminus, with passengers only needing to go through a single border checkpoint either on the Malaysian or Singapore side.
The Jurong Country Club, which was founded in 1975, has a land lease for the site until 2035. The club completed an 18-hole renovation in July 2012, which cost about $24 million.
The SLA said it will not be giving the JCC an alternative site for another golf course, but may offer it another area for social uses.
On May 5, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong revealed that the Singapore terminus for the HSR link to Kuala Lumpur will be in the Jurong Lake District in Jurong East. Details of the site were not provided then.
While the HSR was initially targeted for completion in 2020, both Mr Lee and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak have said this timeline may need to be re-assessed, given the scale and complexity of the project.
