SINGAPORE - The Red Dot Traffic Building at 28 Maxwell Road has been renamed the Maxwell Chambers Suites.
This was revealed on Thursday (June 22) at a groundbreaking ceremony for the redevelopment of the site after the Red Dot Design Museum at the building moved out to make way for the Ministry of Law (MinLaw), which is expanding its adjacent Maxwell Chambers.
The museum's lease ended in April, and it is relocating to Marina Bay.
Maxwell Chambers Suites will be a 120,000 sq ft expansion for Maxwell Chambers. The new offices at the Suites will be expanding even further, with a second annexe block to add 3,500 sq ft of space, MinLaw said on Thursday at the ceremony.
Tenants have already taken up 65 per cent of the new office space. They include The Arbitration Chambers, headed by Professor Lawrence Boo, and London barristers One Essex Court.
The chambers will also house, for the first time, ancillary services firm Opus 2, an international company which specialises in transcription and hearing room services.
The chambers will also be more accessible to the public with an improved network system. It is currently accessible by Tanjong Pagar MRT station.
By 2021, the Tanjong Pagar area where the chambers is located will be served by two more stations, with the upcoming Maxwell and Shenton Way stations on the Thomson-East Coast line.
Maxwell Chambers Suites will have four floors of modern offices for dispute resolution institutions, arbitration chambers, law firms and other ancillary service providers.
Its current adjacent premises will be dedicated fully to hearing facilities. An overhead link-bridge will connect the two buildings.
"Our vision is for Maxwell Chambers to be a base in Asia for all major players," said Senior Minister of State for Law and Finance Indranee Rajah in a speech at the groundbreaking ceremony.
"This is part of our larger plan to take dispute resolution in Singapore to the next level over the next decade."
Singapore won the Most Improved Jurisdiction Award in London on Wednesday night, Singapore time.
As a member of the Judicial Insolvency Network, Singapore also clinched the Most Important Overall Development Award. This was in recognition of its set of cross-border insolvency guidelines at its inaugural meeting in Singapore last year.
Investment arbitration was also identified by MinLaw on Thursday as a new area of opportunity for dispute resolution in Singapore, with its number of hearings doubling over the past four years.
Singapore has seen 10 investment arbitration hearings this year, which have already been held, or are going to be held later in the year. This is double the number in 2013.
Said Ms Indranee: "These are typically complex and high-stakes cases that provide good exposure for our legal talent, and raise our profile as a dispute resolution centre."
