298 Tiong Bahru Road
Site Snapshot
At 298 Tiong Bahru Road, 66,244 residents live within 1km—25,056 in the 0–500m band—and the subzone sits at the 68.5 population percentile. Transit access is immediate: Tiong Bahru station is 118m away, 4 bus stops are within 400m, and 2 rail stations are within 1km. 20 childcare centres are present within 1km; the nearest is on or adjacent to the site, and a primary school is 332m away, while housing is 91.3% HDB and affluence ranks at the 30th percentile among the published planning areas. These signals suggest a dense residential base with strong local access needs; any spike in passerby activity at the station remains a hypothesis worth verifying on site.
| Dimension | Site read | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Customer base | Very large immediate residential catchment | 25,056 residents within 500m · 66,244 within 1km |
| Accessibility | Transit-led | TIONG BAHRU MRT 118m · 4 bus stops within 400m |
| Consumer context | Price-sensitive | Income at the 30th percentile among planning areas · 91% HDB housing mix |
| Urban setting | Residential-led | COMMERCIAL · 68% residential / 3% commercial in the 500m mix |
| Catchment behaviour | Transit-amplified catchment | 25,056 within 500m with strong transit access |
What this means
- Repeat local demand is plausible — the resident base supports frequent, convenience-oriented visits.
- Commuter and cross-neighbourhood flow is plausible — strong transit access widens the reachable market.
- Family-oriented trips are plausible — the childcare and school cluster points to school-run and family patterns.
- Daytime-worker demand is likely limited — office density is low in this catchment.
Key checks before using the site commercially
- Walk the station-to-unit pedestrian route at peak and off-peak to confirm flow and visibility
- Observe daypart footfall to test which hours actually deliver traffic
- Check visibility from the primary arrival paths and street-level approaches
- Verify rent, lease terms, and unit configuration against the intended use
- Review the immediate tenant and operator mix for complementarity or direct competition
This is a data snapshot of the site's observable characteristics — it does not assess any business concept, recommend a format, or estimate commercial viability.
Location & accessibility
Site Snapshot data — no business concept is assessed. Data coverage: High data coverage — 17 of 17 signals available.
Immediate catchment
A dense immediate catchment — about 25,056 residents within the primary ring.
Residents are area-weighted estimates assuming uniform density within each subzone (Census 2020).
Public transport access
The nearest MRT station is TIONG BAHRU, estimated within a 0-5-minute walk on the mapped street network.
Estimated walk time is from the site's geocoded coordinate on the mapped street network — not a building entrance. Route and frequency data is outside this tier's scope.
Parking supply
The nearest carpark is about 81m away with 360 lots.
These figures describe parking supply (capacity), not availability — no live occupancy data exists.
Population density
The TIONG BAHRU STATION subzone carries about 43,103 residents per km²; roughly 25,056 residents within 500m. Resident density ranks at the 68.5 percentile among all published Singapore subzones, and ~94.4 percentile among the 269 commercially zoned peer sites.
Resident counts are area-weighted estimates assuming uniform density within each subzone (Census 2020). Resident density is not pedestrian footfall.
Housing mix
The TIONG BAHRU STATION subzone's residents live almost entirely HDB — 91% in HDB flats, 8% in condominiums. The surrounding subzones vary across the same mix.
Dwelling type is a Census 2020 resident-population SHARE by subzone — it is not a household-income or affordability measure, and housing type must not be equated with income.
Walk time (OpenRouteService)
Walkable reach is broadly efficient: Within a 10-minute walk the modelled pedestrian network reaches 39,771 residents — 100% of what an equal-area circle would hold. At this scale the network does not produce an unusually constrained catchment relative to that circle; actual entrance routes, crossings and indoor mall circulation remain unverified.
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Trade-area catchment
Incremental values per ring — what lives in each band, not cumulative totals. Residents are an area-weighted estimate from subzone totals (estimated from subzone population totals assuming uniform density within each subzone).
1 · Resident catchment
Schematic — rings not drawn to geographic scale (the outer ring spans 1-2km). Residents are incremental per band, area-weighted from Census 2020 subzone totals.
Per-ring detail — transport, schools, land use
How the catchment changes: a circular residential catchment understates non-residential accessibility near a major interchange — transit riders can reach the site from beyond these rings.
158,093 total residents within 2km across all three rings · 203 bus stops · 27,401 carpark lots
Resident density by distance from the site (residents per km², cumulative within each radius) — demand concentrates near the site and falls outward.
2 · Walking reach
Walk-time zones from the site's geocoded coordinate via OpenRouteService's pedestrian network — the summary is CUMULATIVE (within N minutes); the cards below are incremental bands (what lives in each zone).
Within a 10-minute walk the modelled pedestrian network reaches 39,771 residents — 100% of what an equal-area circle would hold. At this scale the network does not produce an unusually constrained catchment relative to that circle; actual entrance routes, crossings and indoor mall circulation remain unverified.
Reach percentage compares modelled walk reach against an equal-area circle; it is not capped at 100% (the modelled catchment can exceed the benchmark) and displayed values round to whole percentages.
3 · Land use and demand context
Share of land area by use within each ring — from URA zoning data (see Source below).
Residential use remains dominant from the primary ring through the fringe; commercial land is a minority share even at the site.
Commercial-vs-residential balance: residential leads the inner catchment (65% vs 3% commercial), and the commercial share rises outward to 8% at 2km — the site sits inside a residential core that draws broader accessibility from surrounding mixed-use districts.
Decomposed 'Other': at 0-500m the 'Other' share (27%) is mostly water (0%), reserve & other (4%), roads & transport (20%); at 500-1000m the 'Other' share (35%) is mostly water (2%), reserve & other (4%), roads & transport (25%); at 1000-2000m the 'Other' share (39%) is mostly water (1%), reserve & other (6%), roads & transport (21%). 'Other' is non-building land in the URA Master Plan 2025 — roads, transport infrastructure, water, open space, reserve sites and uncategorised land. It occupies real area but is not 'land-use character'.
Daypart hypothesis — an inference, not a measured fact. A residential-led inner catchment with direct MRT access to TIONG BAHRU points to neighbourhood-convenience and commuter dayparts; the rising commercial share outward suggests destination trips depend more on the transit anchor than on the immediate land-use mix alone.
A peer land-use benchmark (comparable commercial sites) is not available from the current datasets — this section compares the site against its own surrounding rings instead.
Source: Residents: SingStat Census 2020 (modelled allocation) · Transit: LTA · Carparks: HDB/URA · Anchors: curated/MOE/ECDA
Affluence and housing profile
BUKIT MERAH has the 9th-lowest median employed-household income among the 30 published planning areas in Census 2020.
- Census 2020 — a 6-year-old vintage; it does not move with the current economy.
- Planning-area geography (the whole planning area), not subzone and not the catchment.
- Employed households — the published distribution is based on households with at least one employed person.
- This benchmarks the planning area's residents; it is not a direct measurement of the 500m/1km catchment, or of the site's visitors.
Measurement: trailing-12-month transaction average; the town figure is Bukit Merah's average psf over 853 transactions; the benchmark is the median of the 26 HDB towns' average psf, towns equal-weighted.
The site's catchment measures: about 25,056 residents within 500m; 66,244 within 1km; resident density at the 94th percentile of the 269-site commercial benchmark; affluence percentile 30.0.
Nearby anchors
Named nearby places of interest, ordered by straight-line distance (no concept weighting — this is a neutral list).
Anchors are a curated/licensed subset (MOE/ECDA/curated lists) — not exhaustive; unlisted categories may still exist nearby.
Methodology
Methodology, sources and limitations
- Data coverage: High data coverage — 17 of 17 signals available — the report is computed from the site's available signal groups (subzone population, affluence, land use, office density, transit, schools/healthcare/recreation/childcare/mall/hotel proximity, age bands, car access, household composition).
- Signals are benchmarked against published Singapore datasets (Census 2020, URA Master Plan 2025 land use, LTA transit).
- Trade-area residents are area-weighted estimates assuming uniform density within each subzone (Census 2020); the walking-reach figures are modelled on a street network, not measured routes.
- This Site Snapshot is a data snapshot of the site's observable characteristics. It does not assess a business concept, recommend a format, or estimate commercial viability.
- The site interpretation narrative is generated automatically from this Snapshot's measured signals and model rules. It is not individually reviewed by a human consultant. The narrative is produced by an AI model (deepseek-v4-pro) at report generation from this Snapshot's own computed data -- a data-driven pattern observation, not investment advice.
Source: Residents: SingStat Census 2020 (modelled allocation) · Transit: LTA · Carparks: HDB/URA · Anchors: curated/MOE/ECDA