Located at the corner of Coleman Street and North Bridge Road was the 22-storey Peninsula Hotel. Opened in 1974, the 315-room luxury hotel was mounted on top of a six-storey podium that housed shops selling various merchandise. The hotel housed modern facilities such as function rooms, a reading lounge, sauna bath, roof terrace with a miniature waterfall, a Chinese restaurant-cum-nightclub, a 24-hour coffee house, and three high-speed passenger lifts. It also had a dedicated reception area on the fifth floor to handle group check-ins. The hotel’s opening marked the completion of the final phase of development for the Peninsula hotel and shopping complex, which was built on the site where the residence of George Coleman, colonial Singapore’s first superintendent of public works, once stood. Built in 1829, the historic mansion commonly known as Coleman’s House was demolished in 1969 to make way for the new development. In 1978, the building was linked by a pedestrian underpass to Peninsula Plaza, a shopping-cum-office complex situated across the road. The Excelsior Hotel and shopping complex was completed in 1983. It was connected to Peninsula Hotel’s shopping centre on two floors.
