Revitalised Central Market

It is a work in progress. For the last five years, I have been lamenting the missed opportunity that is the Central Market. It was meant to be the cultural hub of the city, but it suffered from a lack of identity. And even worse, a lack of drive.

It has a great location and comfortable infrastructure, plus public transport was never an issue. Everybody in KL knows the place. But if you were to walk into it five years back, you can tell it had an identity crisis. Here, you had a place that was supposed to sell you Malaysia, manned by foreign workers who often were peddling some dodgy product. Sort of like the cousin of Petaling Street, but at a higher price point. It could have easily been that the workers worked there during the day, then later walked half a kilometre away to Chinatown to start their evening shift.

It had some time to think during the pandemic when certain parts of it were renovated. In the last six months, I could see that the management was trying to sell it to a younger audience. It had a mix of the new and the old KL. And with that, you had events of a retro theme. You could tell it was becoming cool again.

It was nice to see that it was making strides. Let’s see what next ...