Three separate projects, three different government agencies, one small stretch of central Singapore. Novena is being rebuilt around its residents over the next decade — and most people looking at property here have only heard about one of them.
Novena has spent a century as somewhere you go rather than somewhere you live. Hospitals, clinics, a couple of malls, an MRT stop on the way to Orchard.
That is changing, and not by accident. Three distinct developments are underway within a short radius of each other, each led by a different agency, each with its own timeline. Taken separately, any one of them would be a reasonable footnote in a property listing. Taken together, they describe a precinct being deliberately reshaped.
This article looks at all three — what is confirmed, what is still a plan, and what it realistically means if you are buying a home here.
One: HealthCity Novena Enters Its Second Phase
The first is the one people know about, though usually not in its current form.
HealthCity Novena is a 17-hectare integrated healthcare precinct launched by the Ministry of Health in 2013. Phase 1 is complete — it delivered the National Centre for Infectious Diseases with 330 beds in 2019, the Ng Teng Fong Centre for Healthcare Innovation, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine’s Clinical Sciences Building, the TTSH Integrated Care Hub, and a renewed National Skin Centre in 2023.
Phase 2 was launched on 9 September 2025 and is the larger half. Its centrepiece is a proposed Tan Tock Seng Hospital Medical Tower on the existing CDC 2 and Annex 2 sites, envisaged to add around 600 acute beds plus additional specialist outpatient clinics. There is also the possibility of relocating the Emergency Department into the new tower, with direct access to operating theatres and procedural suites.
Beyond beds, the phase includes healing spaces, green corridors and walking trails intended to connect the campus internally and to the neighbourhoods around it. Block 505, one of the historic Pavilion Wards, is to be retained within the new development.
On timing, no completion date has been publicly committed. The masterplan is framed as “2030 and beyond,” and the Minister noted an intention to build faster than the decade such projects usually take by adopting standardised design principles. Treat any specific year you see quoted for the Medical Tower with caution.
Two: The Former Communicable Diseases Centre Becomes a Lifestyle Destination
The second is the one almost nobody in the property market is discussing properly, and it is arguably the most interesting.
At 2 Moulmein Road sits a cluster of more than 40 state-owned buildings on a park-like compound of roughly 985,350 sqft of land, with a combined gross floor area of about 139,700 sqft.
The site has extraordinary history. It was established in 1913 as the Middleton Hospital, later becoming the Communicable Diseases Centre, and served as a cornerstone of Singapore’s public health system for over a century. It closed in 2018 when operations moved to the new National Centre for Infectious Diseases at Tan Tock Seng, and was returned to the state in 2023.
In May 2025, the Singapore Land Authority launched a price and quality tender for the master tenancy, envisioning the site as a lifestyle hub for families and multi-generational communities. Permitted uses include co-living, wellness, health and fitness, pet-friendly services, an art gallery and educational programmes, with roughly 41,900 sqft of GFA allowed for food and beverage and retail.
The tender drew 13 bids and was awarded to Country City Investment — the company behind Dempsey Hill.
Country City Investment won SLA tenders for two Dempsey sites in 2006 and turned a former military barracks into one of Singapore’s best-known lifestyle enclaves. It secured 2 Moulmein Road with a rental bid of $388,800 per month on a five-year master lease with an option for a further four.
The company has described plans for thematic zones catering to different ages and interests, restaurants and cafés, sports and wellness facilities, enrichment and learning spaces, and pet-friendly areas — delivered through adaptive reuse of the heritage buildings rather than demolition. The target for opening is the first quarter of 2027.
If it works, Novena gains something it has never had: a destination where people come to spend an afternoon rather than attend an appointment.
Three: Newton Becomes an Urban Village
The third sits just outside Novena, but close enough to matter.
Under the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Draft Master Plan 2025, the Newton area is planned as a mixed-use urban village of around 5,000 new private homes across three clusters — Newton Circus, Scotts Road and Monk’s Hill.
Two features stand out. A new “Village Square” amenity node is planned beside Newton MRT Interchange, complementing the Newton Food Centre, which is to be retained as a community node. And Monk’s Hill Road is set to become a linear park — a green corridor flanked by mature trees and conserved heritage buildings, connecting Newton MRT through to Emerald Hill.
The planning signal beneath this is worth noting: several plots near Newton MRT have been updated from Reserve Site to White Site. A White Site gives developers flexibility to propose a mix of residential, retail, office and hotel uses, and is the zoning URA typically uses to kickstart a new mixed-use precinct.
Newton is also designated as a distinctive node along the Inner Ring Identity Corridor.
The three at a glance
| Project | Led by | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| HealthCity Novena Phase 2 | Ministry of Health / TTSH | Launched Sept 2025 · “2030 and beyond” |
| 2 Moulmein Road lifestyle hub | SLA / Country City Investment | Target opening 1Q 2027 |
| Newton urban village | URA Draft Master Plan 2025 | Progressive, over 10–15 years |
What This Actually Means for Buyers
Property marketing tends to treat any nearby development as automatically good news. It is worth being more careful than that.
The genuinely positive parts
Novena gains amenity it currently lacks. The precinct is well served for healthcare and adequately served for retail, but it has no lifestyle destination. A Dempsey-style enclave within walking distance changes the daily experience of living there in a way another mall would not.
The employment anchor deepens. Six hundred additional acute beds and more outpatient clinics mean more clinical staff, researchers and faculty needing housing nearby. That supports the tenant pool that already distinguishes this area.
Walkability improves. Green corridors through HealthCity, a linear park along Monk’s Hill Road, and a park-like compound at 2 Moulmein Road together push the area towards being pleasant to move through on foot — historically not Novena’s strength.
Three different agencies are committed. MOH, SLA and URA are each independently invested in this area. That is a more durable signal than any single project.
The parts that cut both ways
Five thousand new homes in Newton is also five thousand units of new supply. This rarely gets said. A large injection of new private housing in an adjacent prime area will compete for the same buyers and tenants. Existing owners benefit from the improved amenity, but they also face more competition when it comes time to sell or lease. Whether the amenity gain outweighs the supply pressure depends on timing, pricing and how the phasing lands.
2 Moulmein Road is a lease, not a sale. The master tenancy runs five years with an option for four more. Dempsey Hill suggests Country City Investment plays a long game, but the tenure is not permanent and the concept is not guaranteed to succeed.
Master plan horizons are long and plans change. The Draft Master Plan 2025 describes intentions across a ten to fifteen year period. Sites get rephased, rezoned and reprioritised. Buying on the assumption that every element arrives on schedule is optimistic.
Construction is the interim reality. Everything described here involves building. For owners planning to hold through the 2030s that is a fair trade. For anyone with a shorter horizon, the disruption arrives before the benefit does.
The balanced conclusion: Novena is being improved by three well-resourced, independently motivated parties, and the direction is clearly upward. That supports demand and it supports the case for the area over the long term.
It does not make any individual property a good buy at any price, and the Newton supply pipeline is a genuine consideration rather than a footnote.
Why the Timing Is Unusual
One last observation, offered as an observation rather than a prediction.
These three projects were not coordinated. MOH’s masterplan dates to 2013. SLA’s tender arose because a hospital site was returned to the state in 2023. URA’s Newton plans emerged from a separate planning cycle. They are converging on the same stretch of Singapore by coincidence rather than design.
What that produces is a period — broadly from now through the early 2030s — in which the area’s amenity, employment base and walkability all improve at once, while the housing stock largely remains what it is today. New supply in Newton is planned progressively over ten to fifteen years, not delivered at once.
For a buyer with a long holding period, that sequencing is favourable. It is not a guarantee of anything, and it is not a reason to overpay. But it is a real feature of the moment, and it is worth understanding rather than taking on trust from a brochure.
Looking at a home in the Novena precinct?
The Serra Residences is a freehold development of 133 homes at 7 Bassein Road, District 11 — within walking distance of both HealthCity Novena and the 2 Moulmein Road site. Previews are scheduled from 19 September 2026.
The Bottom Line
Novena is not being redeveloped in the sense of being torn down and rebuilt. It is being filled in — a hospital campus growing another 600 beds and opening itself to the neighbourhood, a century-old medical compound becoming a place to eat and walk the dog, and a linear park stitching the area towards Orchard.
Most buyers looking here know about the hospitals. Fewer know that the old Communicable Diseases Centre is becoming the next Dempsey, or that Monk’s Hill Road is slated to become a park.
Know all three, weigh the Newton supply honestly against the amenity gains, and you will be making a considerably better-informed decision than someone working from a location map alone.
Sources: Ministry of Health, speech at the launch of the HealthCity Novena Master Plan 2030 and Beyond, 9 September 2025; Singapore Land Authority press release on 2 Moulmein Road, 28 May 2025; EdgeProp reporting on the award of the 2 Moulmein Road master tenancy, December 2025; Urban Redevelopment Authority, Draft Master Plan 2025, Enhancing City Neighbourhoods.
This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute financial, investment or legal advice. Master plan proposals are indicative, subject to change and not commitments to build. Project timelines are set by the relevant authorities and developers and may be revised. Prospective buyers should seek independent professional advice before making any purchase decision.
