After Turf City lease ends, owner of Riders Cafe’s finds place

The owner of Riders Cafe's - which has been at the same venue for 15 years - has been looking for a place that is raw and natural with a similar vibe to Turf City, but has not found anything yet.

Most places out there are quite pretty and fancy and a bit more manicured, so you don't get this kampung feel anymore, the nature lover told CNA.

I don't think you can replicate this natural scenery and background. It's going to take a lot of time to find somewhere, and it's very likely that we're going to have to just close. Either that or we will just close indefinitely. The lease for the site, which has been slated for residential use since Singapore's Master Plan in 1998, did not come as a shock, but it was still a bummer said owner of The Cage Sports Park Rajesh Mulani.

We have lost those two years in our simplistic way of thinking. We have a chance of recovering what we lost if we roll it end of lease back two years. The end of his firm's lease at Turf City has wider implications, according to Mr Mulani.

He said that the larger waste is the sporting lifestyle that we have helped build, because about 100,000 people use the 10 hectare premises - about 18 football fields - every month for activities like soccer, tennis, and paintball.

Our sports resources are highly utilised. We've got a critical mass of people who come actively and regularly to play sports, so you don't want to waste that momentum. We have to figure out what and where next. The people who use the premises are anxious, wondering where they can take their games, he said.

The search for a next venue has not been easy because of the kind of land space he requires. The sports park is not housed in a commercial entity, which is why current prices have been kept affordable.

The space in Turf City is unmatched, said Mr Mulani.

This is like a big mega mall of sports.

You've got like-minded people, like-minded energy, like-minded buzz and you feel like you're in another place that's going to be missed. Like Mr Mulani, Mr Gary Tan, chief executive of Ronnie O Sullivan Snooker Academy, has observed a vibrant sporting culture in Turf City.

He said the location is now seen as an unofficial sports hub.

His academy, which has more than 600 members, offers snooker in a professional environment, which helps to discredit its image as a sport played by delinquents, he said.