Convert old shophouses into hotels?
It is suggested that one good use for the old shophouses of Joo Chiat is to convert them into mid-price hotels. perhaps Joo Chiat can become a tourist area. Not if there is no public transport. In any case, the old shophouses, in my opinion, aren’t particularly suitable for conversion into hotels. At first sight, there is the advantage of character, but there are serious structural drawbacks too. Take the hotel pictured above. It’s only 2 stories high. How many rooms can it hold? If there are too few rooms, there’s no economy of scale. So what owners do is to try to squeeze as many rooms as possible into the already narrow buildings. The result, as I have seen for myself, is an extremely cramped and claustrophobic place. As short-time hotels, they are fine, but they will be at a disadvantage trying to market themselves for longer stays.
