The Sports Hub often hosts fast-paced sports competitions, but when it comes to business at foodcourts in the nearby Kallang Wave Mall and Leisure Park Kallang, things are decidedly sluggish.
A Straits Times check found that many of the stalls in the foodcourts are now unoccupied.
NTUC Foodfare, which operates the foodcourt at Kallang Wave Mall, said it will "resize" to have fewer stalls. An NTUC Foodfare spokesman said: "Over the past 11/2 years, we have gained a better understanding of the footfall and customer preference in this location, and have decided to resize the foodcourt to better utilise our resources and to provide a better dining experience for our patrons.
"The section of the foodcourt where the empty stalls are located will be returned to the landlord."
Resizing work is expected to be done by the third quarter of this year and the foodcourt will have 10 stalls - all tenanted now - down from the 17 it started with in 2014.
One former stallowner, who declined to be named, said he noticed that even when there were events at the Sports Hub, customers bypassed the foodcourt. He said: "Traffic at my stalls at other shopping malls is good. It is not the food, but the lack of people."
One employee at a Korean stall still in business, who gave her name only as Ms Nurbasyisah, 24, said customers comprise mostly workers on weekdays. She added: "It gets busier on weekends but generally business is quite poor."
Meanwhile, a spokesman for SMRT Alpha, which manages Kallang Wave Mall, Singapore Indoor Stadium and Water Sports Centre, said the space will be reorganised to bring in a new tenant.
Over at the nearby Leisure Park Kallang, about five stalls at the Koufu foodcourt were closed, too, when ST visited recently.
A cleaner who declined to be named and has worked there for about eight years, said: "With customers now spread out over two foodcourts, business has suffered."
A spokesman for Jack Investment, landlord of Leisure Park Kallang, said it was understood that Koufu was in the midst of changing the food stall mix. Koufu did not respond by press time.
