The redevelopment of the former Taste Orchard premises at 160 Orchard Road represents far more than a straightforward change of master tenant. JustCo’s decision to take over the entire OG Orchard Point building and transform it into JustCo Place signals a fundamental repositioning of the property—from a predominantly retail and food-oriented destination into an integrated “live, work and connect” ecosystem.
Under the proposed arrangement, the lower portion of the building will contain co-working and retail spaces, while the upper floors will be converted into serviced co-living apartments. Deloitte is expected to occupy the approximately 64,000 sq ft co-working component spanning the third and fourth floors, providing JustCo with a substantial anchor occupier from the outset. Meanwhile, the sixth to 10th floors will house 123 serviced apartments, capable of accommodating up to 475 residents.
This integrated model could be considerably better suited to the building than the previous Taste Orchard concept, as it introduces several distinct yet complementary sources of demand. Instead of depending primarily on walk-in retail customers, JustCo Place will generate recurring activity from office workers, residents, visitors, corporate clients and retail patrons throughout the day.
Why Taste Orchard’s Original Concept Was Vulnerable
Taste Orchard opened in February 2024 as a grocery, food and lifestyle destination after Hao Corp took over the former OG department store premises. Hao Mart’s premium supermarket concept, Eccellente, occupied a substantial portion of the building, while other areas were sublet to food-and-beverage and retail operators.
However, OG terminated Hao Mart’s lease after approximately 18 months, despite the original master tenancy reportedly running for seven-and-a-half years. The tenants were subsequently required to vacate the building by the end of December 2025. Reports also indicated that some operators had experienced weak customer traffic before the closure.
The underlying difficulty was not necessarily the quality of the individual tenants. Rather, the overall concept appears to have been highly dependent on sustained retail footfall.
A multi-level supermarket and food-oriented mall requires a large number of customers to visit regularly, move vertically through the building, and spend sufficiently across several floors. This is particularly challenging along Orchard Road, where Taste Orchard had to compete with established malls such as 313@somerset, Orchard Central, The Centrepoint and Plaza Singapura.
These competing malls already possess recognised tenant mixes, direct or highly convenient MRT access, established circulation patterns and stronger habitual customer traffic. A relatively new concept, therefore, needed to give visitors a compelling reason to enter the building rather than continue to nearby destinations.
The Challenges of Operating a Large Supermarket in Central Orchard Road
A supermarket can be a powerful anchor in a suburban mall because it serves the recurring needs of nearby households. Residents may visit several times a week for groceries, household products and daily essentials.
The same model is more difficult in central Orchard Road.
Although the Orchard-Somerset area attracts large numbers of shoppers, tourists and office workers, many of them are not undertaking full-scale grocery shopping. Tourists may purchase snacks or convenience items, while office workers may buy lunch or small necessities, but neither group necessarily supports a large-format supermarket occupying several floors.
Consumers purchasing substantial amounts of groceries may also prefer neighbourhood malls where parking is easier, products can be transported home more conveniently, and supermarket visits can be combined with other household errands.
This could have produced a mismatch between Taste Orchard’s location and its principal anchor use. The building was situated in a prominent shopping district, but its largest component relied on spending more commonly associated with residential catchments.
Large Floor Plates May Have Magnified the Risk
Taste Orchard occupied a sizeable standalone building. A large master tenancy can create operating efficiencies, but it also concentrates financial risk in a single concept and operator.
The master tenant must fund rent, staffing, maintenance, utilities, marketing and building management while simultaneously securing sub-tenants and maintaining sufficient visitor traffic. When the anchor proposition underperforms, the entire ecosystem can weaken.
Sub-tenants may experience lower sales, vacancies may become harder to fill, and the master tenant may struggle to maintain the overall destination’s attractiveness. This creates a negative feedback loop in which declining traffic discourages tenants, while tenant departures further reduce the reasons customers have to visit.
JustCo’s plan addresses this vulnerability by dividing demand across several uses rather than relying principally on retail turnover.
Why JustCo Is a More Natural Master Tenant
JustCo is not entering the building as an experimental retailer. It is an established flexible workspace operator with experience managing multiple locations, corporate occupiers, membership communities, and shared facilities.
The company is therefore capable of treating the building as an operating platform rather than merely a collection of shops. Its responsibilities can extend beyond leasing individual units to include workspace management, hospitality, programming, resident services, building operations and tenant curation.
This operating model is particularly suitable for a vertically arranged standalone property. Instead of attempting to make every floor function as conventional retail space, JustCo can allocate each level according to its physical suitability.
The lower floors can remain publicly accessible and retail-oriented. The middle floors can accommodate corporate workspaces, while the upper levels—where passing retail traffic would naturally be weaker—can be converted into serviced apartments.
This is a more logical use of the building’s vertical hierarchy.
Deloitte Provides Immediate Occupancy and Revenue Visibility
One of the most important elements of the proposal is Deloitte’s commitment to the co-working component as an interim workplace while it prepares for its longer-term relocation to Orchard Central.
The consultancy is expected to occupy approximately 64,000 sq ft across the third and fourth floors of JustCo Place. A portion of its employees will move from OUE Downtown into the managed workspace, although Deloitte has not disclosed how many staff members will be based there or how long the interim arrangement will remain in place.
For JustCo, securing a major multinational occupier before the building opens substantially reduces initial leasing risk. Even though Deloitte’s presence may be temporary, it provides an immediate base of recurring users and allows the co-working floors to commence operations with meaningful occupancy, rather than relying entirely on small businesses, individual members, or speculative desk demand.
Deloitte employees, clients and visitors are also likely to support the building’s cafés, restaurants, convenience retailers, wellness services and meeting facilities during the transition period. This captive weekday population could help generate the regular footfall that Taste Orchard struggled to sustain through discretionary retail visits alone.
However, because Deloitte is ultimately expected to move into its permanent Orchard Central premises, JustCo will eventually need to backfill the space or retain Deloitte under a revised arrangement. The interim tenancy should therefore be viewed as both a valuable launch-phase anchor and a window of opportunity for JustCo to establish the building, attract additional enterprise clients and build demand for its wider co-working, co-living and retail ecosystem.
Enterprise Co-Working Has Become More Important
Co-working was once associated primarily with freelancers, start-ups and small businesses. However, flexible-workspace providers have increasingly expanded into managed offices for large companies.
Under this model, an enterprise client can occupy customised space without incurring the full capital expenditure and operational burden associated with a conventional office lease. The workspace operator handles fit-out, maintenance, reception, shared amenities, meeting facilities, technology and day-to-day building services.
This arrangement can offer corporations greater flexibility as workforce numbers and workplace policies evolve.
For Deloitte, a managed workspace may allow it to create a modern environment for collaboration while retaining flexibility over its longer-term real estate requirements. For JustCo, enterprise clients provide stronger income visibility than memberships from individual users alone.
The arrangement therefore aligns the interests of both parties.
Why Orchard Road Could Work for Corporate Offices
Although Orchard Road is best known as a retail district, it also has several characteristics that make it well-suited to professional offices.
The building is located within walking distance of Somerset MRT station and is surrounded by dining, shopping, hotels and lifestyle amenities. JustCo already operates a nearby location at The Centrepoint, where it markets Orchard Road accessibility and proximity to Somerset MRT as major advantages.
For companies competing for talent, an Orchard Road workplace can offer a different employee proposition from a conventional CBD tower. Staff members have convenient access to restaurants, gyms, medical services, entertainment venues and shopping before work, during lunch and after office hours.
This can be especially attractive under hybrid-working arrangements, where employees may travel to the office fewer days each week but expect those visits to provide better collaboration, social interaction and amenities.
The office becomes less a place for routine desk work and more a destination for meetings, teamwork, training, and client engagement.
Co-Living Makes Better Use of the Upper Floors
The most transformative component of JustCo’s plan is the conversion of the upper floors into serviced co-living apartments.
The proposed JustAt accommodation will comprise 123 units across the sixth to 10th floors, ranging from compact studios to larger three-bedroom apartments. The apartments are expected to accommodate between 400 and 500 beds, with the overall property capable of housing up to 475 guests.
This conversion solves a fundamental problem faced by many vertically arranged retail buildings: upper floors generally receive less spontaneous footfall.
Consumers are more likely to visit retail premises located near street level or along established circulation routes. Every additional level introduces friction, particularly when visitors cannot immediately see what is available upstairs.
Residential or hospitality uses do not depend on passing traffic to the same extent. Guests deliberately travel to their rooms and are prepared to use lifts to access upper levels. Higher floors may even be preferred because they offer greater privacy, reduced street noise, and potentially better views.
The serviced-apartment use therefore extracts value from floors that would be relatively difficult to lease as conventional retail space.
Co-Living Creates Recurring Internal Demand
Co-living also introduces a resident population that can support the rest of the development.
Unlike occasional shoppers, residents are present every day. They require meals, coffee, groceries, laundry services, fitness facilities, workspaces and social areas. Some residents may also use JustCo’s offices, meeting rooms or business services.
This creates a built-in customer base for retailers on the lower floors.
A breakfast operator can serve residents in the morning and office workers later in the day. A café may serve meetings during working hours before becoming a social venue in the evening. Convenience retailers can serve residents, workers and neighbourhood visitors throughout the day.
The various components reinforce one another instead of operating independently.
A Genuine Live-Work Ecosystem
The phrase “live, work and connect” can sometimes be used loosely in property marketing. However, at JustCo Place, the concept has a tangible operational basis.
A business traveller could stay in the serviced apartments, work from a meeting room, meet clients in the co-working centre and dine within the building. A project team from overseas could be accommodated and provided with a temporary workspace under a coordinated arrangement.
Likewise, a professional relocating to Singapore could initially live at JustAt while working from JustCo, before securing permanent accommodation and office arrangements.
This creates opportunities for bundled corporate packages that a conventional hotel, office landlord or co-working provider may not be able to offer independently.
Cross-Selling Is Central to the Strategy
JustCo’s entry into co-living is strategically significant because it allows the company to sell multiple services to the same customer base.
A corporate client using JustCo’s workspaces may also require accommodation for employees, overseas executives, consultants, trainees or project teams. Conversely, a serviced-apartment resident may require access to a desk, a meeting room, an event venue, or a business address.
Instead of referring those requirements to external providers, JustCo can capture a larger share of each customer’s expenditure.
Potential offerings could include:
- Workspace and accommodation packages for project teams
- Short-term offices for companies entering Singapore
- Apartments for employees undergoing training
- Meeting and event facilities for regional business gatherings
- Corporate accommodation for visiting executives
- Flexible work memberships for long-stay residents
This increases the potential revenue generated from each corporate relationship and reduces dependence on any one business segment.
Retail Becomes a Supporting Amenity Rather Than the Sole Attraction
Under the former Taste Orchard arrangement, retail and food uses were expected to function as the building’s main destination drivers. Under JustCo Place, retail will serve a different role. It will remain important, but it will support the office and residential populations rather than carrying the entire building.
This changes the type of tenant that may be most suitable.
Instead of filling the property with a broad collection of discretionary retailers, JustCo can focus on operators that serve frequent, practical needs. These may include cafés, casual dining, convenience stores, wellness providers, fitness concepts, healthcare services, salons or business-support services. Such tenants benefit from repeat customers rather than depending exclusively on high-volume public footfall. The retail component can therefore be smaller, more focused and more closely integrated with the building’s daily users.
How the Building Could Generate Activity Throughout the Day
One of the strongest aspects of the concept is its ability to support different uses at different times.
In the morning, residents may purchase breakfast while Deloitte employees and other office users enter the building. During the day, cafés and restaurants can serve workers, clients, and meeting attendees. In the evening, residents and office workers can support dining, wellness and lifestyle operators.
At weekends, serviced-apartment guests and external visitors can continue to patronise the retail areas even when office attendance is lower.
This produces a more balanced utilisation pattern than a single-purpose office or mall. Rather than experiencing intense activity only during office hours or shopping periods, the building can remain active across a longer portion of the day.
The Standalone Building Gives JustCo Greater Control
Another advantage is that JustCo appears to be taking over the building under a master-tenancy structure rather than occupying only a few individual floors. This allows it to control the tenant mix, customer journey, branding, security, programming and allocation of space.
A unified operator can coordinate reception areas, access systems, signage, lifts, events and shared facilities across the entire property. It can also design the retail mix specifically around the needs of workers and residents.
That level of control would be harder to achieve in a conventional strata-titled or multi-landlord environment. JustCo Place can therefore be presented as a single branded destination rather than a loosely connected collection of tenants.
Why the Model Could Benefit Landlord OG
For OG, replacing Hao Mart with JustCo potentially provides a clearer repositioning strategy for the property.
Following the early termination of the Taste Orchard tenancy, OG needed more than another retail operator. Repeating a similar retail-heavy concept could have exposed the building to the same structural difficulties.
JustCo offers a model that diversifies occupancy across workspace, accommodation and retail. The presence of Deloitte further strengthens the initial tenant profile and reduces uncertainty surrounding the office component.
The redevelopment may also reposition the building as a modern mixed-use asset without requiring OG to sell or comprehensively redevelop the property. Instead, the existing structure can be adapted and reactivated through a new operating concept.
The Strategy Aligns With the Evolution of Orchard Road
Orchard Road is gradually moving away from being purely a shopping corridor. Changing consumer habits, e-commerce and competition from suburban malls have encouraged landlords to introduce more dining, entertainment, wellness, hospitality and experiential uses.
JustCo Place fits this broader evolution by introducing a resident and working population to a traditional retail district. Rather than waiting for shoppers to arrive, the building creates its own community of users. This could also strengthen the Somerset area as a mixed-use precinct where people work, stay, dine and socialise—not merely shop.
Potential Benefits for JustCo
The development may provide JustCo with several strategic advantages.
First, it allows the company to expand beyond co-working into adjacent revenue streams. Second, it establishes a flagship property along Orchard Road. Third, it strengthens JustCo’s ability to serve large enterprise customers. Fourth, it provides a platform for testing an integrated operating model that could potentially be replicated elsewhere. If successful, JustCo Place could demonstrate that the company can operate not only individual co-working centres but also entire mixed-use lifestyle buildings.
That would broaden its potential partnerships with landlords that own ageing department stores, secondary shopping centres or underutilised commercial properties.
Important Risks Remain
Despite the strategic logic, the project is not without risk.
The building will require substantial capital expenditure to convert former retail areas into offices and serviced apartments. Residential units must meet planning, fire safety, ventilation, plumbing, and operational requirements that differ considerably from those of retail premises. The co-living segment will also face competition from hotels, serviced residences, rental apartments and other flexible-living operators.
Retail leasing remains another challenge. Although Deloitte employees and residents will provide a captive audience, JustCo must still select operators capable of surviving on the available customer base. Overestimating external footfall could recreate some of Taste Orchard’s earlier problems.
There is also an interim occupancy risk. Although Deloitte’s temporary commitment provides immediate credibility and a stable source of footfall during the building’s launch phase, its eventual relocation to Orchard Central means JustCo cannot rely on this tenancy indefinitely. The long-term success of the co-working component will therefore depend on its ability to attract additional enterprise clients and diversify its occupier mix before Deloitte exits.
The Property Must Function as One Ecosystem
The project’s success will ultimately depend on whether its components are genuinely integrated. Simply placing offices, apartments and shops in the same building will not automatically create a successful mixed-use destination.
JustCo will need to develop shared programming, digital booking systems, resident privileges, corporate packages, community events, and common facilities that encourage users to move between components.
For example, residents could receive access to workspace, while office clients could be offered preferential accommodation rates. Retail tenants could provide discounts to members and residents. Meeting facilities could be marketed to both external companies and guests. These links will determine whether JustCo Place operates as a coherent ecosystem or merely as several unrelated businesses under one roof.
A More Resilient Concept Than Taste Orchard
The principal strength of JustCo’s strategy is diversification. Taste Orchard largely relied on the success of a consumer-facing supermarket, food and retail proposition. JustCo Place will instead draw demand from several groups:
- Deloitte employees and corporate visitors
- Other JustCo members and enterprise clients
- Long-stay serviced-apartment residents
- Short-term business travellers
- Retail and dining customers
- Event and meeting attendees
- The surrounding Orchard Road community
Each group can support the others. Even if external retail footfall is weaker than expected, the offices and apartments create an internal population. If co-working demand fluctuates, accommodation and retail provide alternative revenue. If serviced-apartment occupancy is seasonal, the corporate workspace remains anchored by Deloitte.
This makes the building less dependent on a single customer behaviour.
From Retail Experiment to Integrated Urban Hub
JustCo’s takeover of the former Taste Orchard premises is a calculated attempt to solve the building’s previous weaknesses through a more diversified and vertically integrated operating model.
Taste Orchard faced the difficult task of attracting sufficient grocery, food, and retail traffic to a large multi-storey building in one of Singapore’s most competitive shopping districts. JustCo Place reverses that equation by placing recurring users inside the property.
Deloitte supplies a substantial weekday workforce. JustAt introduces hundreds of potential residents. The retail floors can then serve these captive populations while continuing to attract external customers.
The concept is particularly well suited to the building’s configuration because offices occupy the middle floors, serviced apartments make productive use of the upper levels and retail remains concentrated closer to the street.
Execution risk remains significant, particularly regarding conversion costs, retail curation, and co-living demand. Nevertheless, the strategy is fundamentally more resilient than relying solely on a supermarket-led destination.
If JustCo can successfully integrate accommodation, workspace, retail and community programming, JustCo Place could become a credible model for repositioning other underutilised commercial buildings—not only along Orchard Road, but across mature urban districts where traditional retail formats are increasingly difficult to sustain.
Disclaimer: The information and analysis presented in this article are based on publicly available reports, official announcements and market information available at the time of writing. The views expressed represent independent analysis and should not be construed as statements of fact regarding the commercial intentions, financial performance or future plans of JustCo, Deloitte, OG, or any other parties mentioned.
Any discussion of business strategy, tenant demand, operational performance, occupancy, footfall, financial viability or future developments is based on the author’s interpretation of available information and should be regarded as opinion rather than confirmed outcomes. Actual leasing arrangements, occupancy levels, tenant mix, project timelines and operational strategies may differ from those discussed.
This article is intended solely for informational and educational purposes and does not constitute investment, financial, legal, commercial or real estate advice. Readers should conduct their own due diligence and consult official announcements and professional advisers before making any business or investment decisions based on the information contained herein.
Article contributed by Jerry Wong.
Jerry Wong is a realtor at Propnex Realty, bringing a rich background in interior and lighting design to his work. He loves exploring diverse spaces and observing the transformative power of real estate. Beyond his professional role, Jerry finds his greatest fulfillment in connecting people with the right properties, gaining immense satisfaction from helping clients achieve their dreams.
