Core Collective’s newest facility at i12 Katong has a total of 7,000 sq ft (Photo: Samuel Isaac Chua/The Edge Singapore)
SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - On March 26, Core Collective, Aurum Land’s co-working platform targeted toward fitness and wellness practitioners, held a media preview for its newest facility located at the revamped i12 Katong mall on East Coast Road.
See also: Core Collective opens in Dempsey Hill
This is Core Collective’s first branch in the east. The centrepiece of the 7,000 sq ft facility is the gym and functional training area with full-height glass windows overlooking the busy intersection between the East Coast and Joo Chiat roads. There are also 10 treatment and consultation rooms, a physical rehab area, and an occupational therapy room.
The new branch marks Core Collective’s third facility. In 2018, it opened its maiden outlet at 79 Anson Road, an office building in the CBD. Taking up 23,500 sq ft, the space caters primarily to working professionals who train at the gym or go for group fitness classes. A year later, it opened its second branch at Loewen Road, in a colonial-era building tucked within the lush greenery of Dempsey Hill. With roughly 130,000 sq ft of indoor and outdoor space that includes a pool area, the Dempsey outlet’s clientele mainly consists of families and the residential community in the area.
The outlet at i12 Katong lies somewhere between the two. “I see Core Collective Katong as a nice blend between [the outlets at] Anson and Dempsey,” says Michelle Yong, CEO and co-founder of Core Collective. “[There are] a lot of professionals, but there is also still that focus on lifestyle and family.”
One thing that does set the Katong outlet apart from the other two branches is a designated area within the facility which is set apart from the rest of the space and has its own entrance and reception. Dubbed Core Clinic, it is Core Collective’s first location to offer its new medical co-working concept that targets specialist healthcare practitioners.
The space, which is licensed for use as a medical facility under the Ministry of Health, currently comprises three medical suites and is slated to open for operations early next month.
Core Clinic is a 50:50 joint venture between Aurum Land and Singapore Medical Group (SMG), a listed company that has a network of over 30 private clinics located across Singapore offering specialist medical services. It also has a presence in Indonesia, Vietnam and Australia.
For Yong, moving into the medical co-working space is a natural progression for Core Collective. “It was always on our expansion trajectory — we wanted to extend the same offering to medical professionals,” she says.
In Singapore, the practice of sharing space among private specialist doctors is already fairly common. “We already see a lot of doctors share clinics, with different days for different doctors at that same clinic,” Yong notes. But the arrangement requires doctors to coordinate schedules, while also being inflexible for ad-hoc appointments or changes in schedules.
Core Clinic aims to offer a hassle-free solution, allowing doctors and medical practitioners to book a space to use as and when needed. Doctors who use the space will have access to a medical concierge backed by SMG’s 24- hour call centre. They will also be able to order medical supplies for usage at the facility through Core Clinic.
Doctors can book usage of a medical suite at Core Clinic i12 Katong on four-hour time blocks, with a minimum booking requirement of three blocks per week. Rates are charged monthly, ranging from $2,500–$6,800 per month depending on how many blocks per week are booked.
Demand for the space has been encouraging so far. Already, two of the three medical suites available have been leased out on a one-year basis — one to an obstetrics and gynaecology specialist, the other to a dermatology practice. “We might convert some of the wellness rooms [at Core Collective i12 Katong] into medical suites if demand proves to be more than what we have initially catered,” Yong remarks.
By expanding into the medical co-working space, Yong hopes to create a synergistic ecosystem of medical doctors and fitness and wellness practitioners all under one roof. “A big reason why we started Core Clinic is that our fitness and wellness professionals want to cross-collaborate with the medical fraternity,” she explains. By having them all on the Core Collective platform, the doctors and fitness and wellness practitioners will be able to benefit from joint marketing efforts and opportunities to network and collaborate.
The addition of Core Clinic has broadened the offerings under Aurum, which Yong says will enable it to better cater to the needs of landlord partners. “Core Collective is such an attractive proposition because we can pick and mix the right service offerings to best enhance their brand proposition and positioning,” explains Yong.
At i12 Katong, Core Collective worked with landlord Keppel Land to figure out the focus of the space. “Because they already had Absolute You doing studio classes it didn’t make sense for us to also provide those group classes,” she says. Instead, the Core Collective space provides a gym area and wellness space in i12 Katong’s tenant mix. The addition of Core Clinic will also supplement the medical offerings already at the mall, which include One Wellness Medical, a subset of Eu Yan Sang that offers GP and traditional Chinese medicine services; as well as a dental practice.
The plug and play solution also applies to Core Collective’s fourth upcoming facility at Amara Sanctuary Resort in Sentosa. The partnership will see the platform taking over the operations for the 13,000 sq ft of gym and spa space available at the resort. The facility is targeted for opening in late May or early June.
Meanwhile, Yong says future expansion plans will likely focus on Core Clinic, though it will also depend on landlords or partners that they work with and what their aspirations and intentions are in that particular location. “Different markets will require different permutations of our services,” she says.
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