Wheelock Place frequently asked questions

Wheelock Place is a seven-level shopping mall sitting beneath a 21-storey office tower at 501 Orchard Road, at the western end of Singapore’s main shopping belt. It opened in 1994 as Lane Crawford Place and was renamed Wheelock Place after the Lane Crawford department store closed in 1996. The building is owned and managed by Wharf Estates Singapore, formerly Wheelock Properties (Singapore), and is instantly recognisable from the street by the tall glass cone over its entrance.

Unlike the mega-malls further east along Orchard Road, Wheelock Place is deliberately compact. It holds roughly ninety shops rather than several hundred, which makes it quick to walk end to end and popular with people who want a specific shop, restaurant or clinic rather than an afternoon of browsing.

The mall building is generally open daily from around 10.00am to 10.00pm. Individual tenants set their own hours within that window. Restaurants and cafes commonly run 11.00am to 9.30pm or 10.00pm, retail shops typically 11.00am to 8.00pm or 9.00pm, and the clinics on Levels 4 and 5 usually operate shorter weekday hours with reduced Saturday opening and Sunday closures.

Hours are extended in the run-up to Christmas and Chinese New Year, and several clinics close entirely over the Chinese New Year period. If your visit depends on one particular shop, phone ahead.

Alight at Orchard MRT station, which is served by the North South Line (NS22) and the Thomson–East Coast Line (TE14). From the station follow signs for Wheelock Place or ION Orchard and use the underground link; Exit E towards Paterson Link brings you into the mall’s basement levels without stepping outside. The walk from the platform takes roughly five minutes.

Above ground, the mall is directly opposite ION Orchard and beside Shaw House, so any bus stop serving that junction leaves you within a two-minute walk.

Yes. The car park sits in the basement of the building and the entrance is reached from Angullia Park, the side road running down the western edge of the site. Published rates have generally been around S$3.00 for the first hour and S$1.50 for each subsequent half hour or part thereof, with a flat evening rate of about S$4.50 per entry from roughly 6.00pm to 8.00am and a small lunchtime surcharge in the middle of the day.

Rates change without much notice and the operator’s board at the entrance is always the authority. Some tenants offer parking redemption against a minimum spend, so keep your receipts.

Food and drink runs across every level. The best-known sit-down option is Sun with Moon Japanese Dining & Café on Level 3, alongside Cedele All Day Dining. Level 2 has Pistachio for Middle Eastern and Mediterranean grills, Uya for Japanese unagi, plus dessert and pie counters. Basement 1 and Basement 2 handle coffee, tea and quick meals with Starbucks, CHICHA San Chen, Kei Kaisendon, BreadTalk, Toast Box and NamNam Noodle Bar. Level 1 adds M&S Café, Privé and the cafe inside Zall Bookstore.

Yes, through the underground pedestrian network around Orchard MRT station. You can walk from Wheelock Place under Orchard Road into ION Orchard’s basement and on towards Wisma Atria and Ngee Ann City without going outside. The surface-level pedestrian crossing directly between the two malls was closed years ago, so the underpass is the intended route.

No. Borders operated its Singapore flagship store at Wheelock Place for many years and closed it in 2011. Marks & Spencer subsequently became the mall’s main anchor tenant. A different bookshop returned to the building in 2021 when Zall Bookstore opened a large Chinese-language store with its own cafe on Level 1, extending up to Level 2.

It depends what you want. If you are after flagship luxury boutiques, the malls further east along Orchard Road will serve you better. Wheelock Place is worth the stop if you want Marks & Spencer food and clothing, a calm sit-down meal away from the crowds, a specific homegrown label, or an aesthetics, dental or eye appointment. Many regulars also use it simply as the quietest air-conditioned entry point to the shopping belt, and as a less congested place to park.

Yes, a great many. The Orchard–Scotts junction outside the mall is one of the densest hotel clusters in Singapore, with four- and five-star properties within two to ten minutes on foot in almost every direction, plus quieter and often cheaper options in Tanglin and Claymore just west of the mall. See our hotels near Wheelock Place page.

No. thewheelockplace.com is an independent visitor guide. We are not owned by, operated by, endorsed by or affiliated with Wheelock Place, Wharf Estates Singapore, Wheelock Properties, Wheelock and Co. or any tenant listed here. We compile publicly available information about the mall so visitors can plan a trip. For official announcements, leasing enquiries or lost property, contact the mall directly.

We currently list 92 tenants across the seven retail levels: 15 food and drink outlets, 20 fashion shops, 32 beauty and aesthetics listings, 22 service and clinic listings and 17 specialty shops. Some tenants appear in two categories because they offer both medical and cosmetic services. The total moves as leases turn over.

Basement 2 is the transit level with bakeries, a noodle bar and underwear and sportswear labels. Basement 1 covers coffee, tea, quick meals, optical and wellness retail. Level 1 holds Marks & Spencer, Zall Bookstore and the kiosks at the Orchard Road frontage. Level 2 is the main browsing floor for fashion, eyewear, lifestyle goods and casual dining. Level 3 mixes sit-down restaurants with salons and independent boutiques. Levels 4 and 5 are given over almost entirely to aesthetic clinics, dental practices and medical suites.

The building is owned and managed by Wharf Estates Singapore, previously named Wheelock Properties (Singapore), which is part of the Hong Kong group Wheelock and Co. The mall takes its present name from that ownership, having originally opened as Lane Crawford Place in 1994.

The Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, a founding figure of the Metabolist movement, designed the building. It was completed in 1994. The conical glass structure over the entrance is his most recognisable gesture here, drawing daylight down into the atrium and giving the mall its distinctive silhouette on Orchard Road.

Singapore’s nationwide public Wi-Fi service is available across much of the Orchard Road area, and individual cafes and restaurants inside the mall commonly offer their own networks to customers. Availability and network names change, so ask at the counter of wherever you are sitting.

Reasonably so. It is small enough that children do not get lost easily, lifts serve every level for prams, and there are bakeries, dessert counters and a bookshop with reading space. Ergokid on Level 3 sells children’s ergonomic furniture. It is not a mall with dedicated play attractions, however, so families looking for that will do better elsewhere on the belt.

Tourists who spend above the qualifying threshold at participating retailers can claim a Goods and Services Tax refund when departing Singapore. Ask the shop for the tourist refund paperwork at the point of purchase, not afterwards, and allow extra time at the airport to process the claim.

The building opened in 1994 as Lane Crawford Place and housed the Hong Kong luxury department store Lane Crawford across five floors, complete with Singapore’s first curved escalators. Lane Crawford withdrew in 1996 and the building was renamed. Borders then ran its Singapore flagship bookstore here until 2011, after which Marks & Spencer became the anchor tenant.