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The Star Vista. Probably best known as the mall owned by New Creation Church. Being un-religious, I basically know it as the place where I attend a lot of concerts (most recently the fantastic Distant Worlds concert!). As an Eastie, there's previous little reason else to go all the way to Buona Vista for what is otherwise a fairly generic (upmarket) shopping mall. Manoeuvrability: Tight or not? Most of the carpark is generally not hard to get around, but there is one particular portion that’s tricky. When you come off any down ramp, there’s a tight, narrow and S-shaped section (snaking around a lift lobby) that can be tricky, especially for wider and longer cars. Just take it slow, and you shouldn’t have any issue. 7/10 Ease of navigation: Confusing or not? This carpark is pretty idiot-proof. The shape is not confusing, traffic is one-way, lots are clearly marked (the light on top indicates availability), there are lots of signs pointing you the right way, and overall carpark visibility is quite good. 9/10 Lot availability: Crowded or not? Star Vista is a curious place. On most days, it’s not going to be super crowded, and with over 800 lots available finding space should not be too hard. However, because of the Star Theatre, which hosts both church services on weekends as well as big music events, there are times when it can get very crowded. The peculiarity of the crowd surge is that because these events end at a particular timing and a lot of people are then trying to exit at the same time, traffic getting out can get quite bad. This is made worse by the fact that the up ramp filters into a single lane together with the cars on the upper level exiting, creating a bottleneck (it’s especially bad on B2 because one of the exit gantries is quite near said bottleneck). 3/10 or 7/10, depending on the day Cost: Expensive of not? $1.80 an hour from Mon to Sat, $2.30 an hour on Sundays. That’s slightly pricey. Not that there’s many other options around. The next-door Rochester Mall is slightly cheaper at $1.30 an hour, but obviously not as convenient. Worth noting: On Sundays and public holidays, full-day parking is capped at $10 (catering to the church crowd, I’m guessing). 6/10 EV Chargers: Can charge or not? There are 3 Tesla Superchargers there, but no ‘normal’ ones. So, it’s a bit tricky to answer depending on whether you are driving a Tesla or not. Tesla owner? Great. Any other EV? Terrible. 0/10 or 8/10. Motorcycle lots: Bike-friendly or not? Decent amount of lots are available, and at $1.08 per entry reasonably priced as well. 8/10 Accessibility: Can find or not? The carpark entrances are not hard to find. However, on event days, traffic towards the carpark, especially coming from North Buona Vista Road, is going to be heavy and slow going (there’s a single right-turning lane, which causes quite a back up). 7/10 Overall design: Good or not? Overall, the design of the Star Vista carpark is quite good. Bottlenecks happen, but that’s more to do with the nature of the crowd (big groups leaving at the same timing) rather than poor design. It would be nice if there were more EV charging options for non-Teslas, and yes it’s on the pricey side, but hey, it’s The Star Vista. You kinda expect things to be pricey. 7/10 ~ Desmond

You know what? It fits how we use other expensive things like phones, wallets etc to chope our tables and seats. This is just the natural evolution. What happened? An auntie in Star Vista parking lot yesterday pulled off a 1 v 5 clutch against other drivers to chope a parking lot for a Nissan Sylphy, of which she was the passenger of. According to the person who submitted the video, they had been waiting in the lot for around 20-30 min before finally seeing a car driving out of the lot. They were excited to finally be able to park until they saw the auntie “happily walking and standing in the lot”. This meme came to mind: They thought the auntie was simply going to stand around for a bit until they tried to reverse and found the auntie still not moving. At this point, “I know this auntie want to be famous alr.” Asking the auntie to move nicely (supposedly), she insisted that her car was coming and that she got here first. I think she also said “what you want me to do?”, but the background noise is too loud to hear clearly so hear for yourselves. The recorder found that another driver was leaving at this time and chose to relent. Online chatter There’s a common adjective used to describe this kind of behaviour. Some also criticised the act of chopeing parking lots. Others gave some… interesting solutions that they would have done had they been there. ========= Be the first to get the latest road/ COE news and get first dibs on exclusive promos and giveaways in our Telegram SGCM Community. Join us today!

Singapore-listed developer CapitaLand said on Wednesday (Nov 20) that it has agreed to sell The Star Vista for S$296 million to Rock Productions, the business arm of New Creation Church. The sale, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, is expected to generate about S$145 million in net proceeds and about S$32 million in net gain for CapitaLand. The selling price is about 13 per cent above the S$262 million that The Star Vista was valued at the end of June. Located next to the Buona Vista MRT Interchange, The Star Vista is part of a 15-storey integrated development that also includes a 5,000-seat auditorium. It was opened in September 2012 and comprises three levels of retail space with a net lettable area of about 162,500 square feet. The mall had a 95 per cent occupancy as of end-June. Its major tenants include Beauty in the Pot and LeNu, Canton Paradise Teahouse, Redman by Phoon Huat, Swee Lee and Cold Storage. When the transaction is completed, CapitaLand will own 19 malls, including one under development in Singapore. Rock Productions owns The Star Performing Arts Centre that is co-located with The Star Vista. It also manages Rock Gifts & Book Centre, a retail centre that supplies a wide range of inspirational books, music, sermon CDs, DVDs and gifts, as well as Omega Tours & Travel and Shine Auditorium in Shaw Tower.