SINGAPORE: For decades, Tan Boon Liat Building has been where furniture retailers did something unusual: they sent customers to one another.

If a shop did not have what a customer was looking for, it would direct them to a neighbouring retailer most likely to have it.

Tenants at the furniture and home decor hub also organised block parties and created a directory to help customers navigate the 15-storey building on Outram Road - a rare initiative in a competitive industry.

When news of the building's S$950 million (US$756 million) en bloc sale to Kingsford Group emerged on Tuesday (Jul 21) morning, some tenants took to a WhatsApp chat group to discuss their next moves, with a collective move mooted as a possibility.

"My first port of call would be to band the community together and try to see whether we can do something together," said Mr Saurabh Mangla, who owns Ipse Ipsa Ipsum, a bespoke furniture brand that also provides interior design services. 

"If we can find a way to house people together, even if it's not the whole ecosystem but some parts of it, then slowly, it (may) build over time." 

For most tenants, the uncertainty was not whether they would eventually have to leave, but when, where they could relocate to and whether Singapore's best-known furniture enclave could survive elsewhere.

Built in 1976, the commercial mixed-use development comprises a 15-storey building at 315 Outram Road and a smaller two-storey building across the car...