Kampong Ubi

Headquarters of Singapore Civil Defence Force, located in Ubi.

Kampong Ubi, also known as Ubi Estate, is a subzone located in the planning area of Geylang in the Central Region of Singapore. It lies within a somewhat rhombic piece of land bounded by Airport Road at the north, the Pan-Island Expressway at the south, Eunos Link at the east and Paya Lebar Road at the west. The area was formerly a Malay village.

Etymology and early history

The Malay word Ubi refers to the tapioca plant. Malays used to grow small tapioca farms there

Kampong Ubi (Jawi: كامڤوڠ اوبي) (Jawi is spoken just like in Malay but it is in Arabic writing, it is similar to how Urdu is spoken like Hindi but the characters used are of the Arabic language) was a rather large village even for its time. The first settlements began at the junction of Jalan Ubi and Changi Road, and quickly expanded northwards to the areas designated as the Kampong Ubi subzone today. All the roads and side-lanes within the kampong were named after vegetables, e.g. Jalan Kobis (cabbage), Jalan Bayam (spinach), Jalan Tauge (bean sprouts) as these areas used to have many of these plants. These road names became expunged with the development of the area.

Due to housing and industrial developments sometime in the late 80s, villages were resettled to nearby Bedok and Bedok Reservoir. Most of the Jalan Ubi main road was expunged, leaving a short lane in the Eunos area.

Ubi Estate

Today, Ubi Estate is mainly an industrial area with only the south-eastern corner developed for residential use with about 50 blocks of flats built by the Housing and Development Board. The industrial estate has a high concentration of automotive related businesses with many major dealerships having their showrooms and workshops there. Other related businesses such as body- and paint-shops also have their workshops there, along with other small and medium-sized enterprises. A few factories of multi-national firms stand alongside purpose-built flatted-factories of the Jurong Town Corporation and other private developers.

Currently, two schools are located in Ubi. They are Manjusri Secondary School and Maha Bodhi School.

There are future plans by the HDB to build a new BTO estate called Ubi Grove on a plot of land next to Manjusri Secondary School

Transportation

Now the MRT station on the Downtown Line, Ubi, will serve the residents and industrial workers in and around Ubi Estate Everyday.

Other Organizations

• ComfortDelGro Driving Centre
• SPF Traffic Police Department Headquarters