SINGAPORE (March 21): The Land Transport Authority has awarded a $1.99 billion civil contract to build the East Coast Integrated Depot and its reception tunnels to South Korea-based GS Engineering & Construction Corp.

The East Coast Integrated Depot will be the first in the world to integrate three train depots and one bus depot within a single site of 36 hectares.

For this four-in-one depot, LTA will stack the train depots for the East-West Line (EWL), Downtown Line (DTL) and Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) with a bus depot located next to them.

The integrated depot will be able to house around 220 trains and 550 buses.

This land integration would save 44 hectares of land, or an area of approximately 60 football fields, for Singapore, according to LTA.

LTA also awarded three other civil contracts worth $1.31 billion for the construction of Siglap and Bayshore stations along TEL and Xilin station along Downtown Line 3 Extension (DTL3e).

Construction for the four civil contracts is expected to start by 2Q2016. Siglap and Bayshore stations are slated to be completed in 2023, while Xilin station and East Coast Integrated Depot are targeted for completion in 2024.