Trip Report: Jakarta construction update

Part 1: A summary of the big construction projects in the city that, contrary to media reports, is not being abandoned.

The last time I was in Jakarta was in September 2019, which was about one month after President Joko Widodo announced that the capital would move to Borneo. In the four years since that announcement, there have been numerous articles that are framing the story that Jakarta is being abandoned. In my mind’s eye, Jakarta had become a lost city where people were just biding their time waiting to leave.

There are so many of these stories that they take on a life of its own, to the point that the entire city of 10 million people is being moved. For the record, Jakarta is not being abandoned. It does though have enormous challenges such as traffic, pollution, and the double whammy of a sinking city next to a rising sea.

There is nothing like a boots-on-the-ground trip to get a feel for what is really happening. My visit reminded me that Jakarta is still the overwhelming economic and cultural engine room of Indonesia. It continues to draw young people from the provinces, even while the politicians and bureaucrats are preparing to move to Nusantara.

My last visit to Jakarta was around the time of the student protests against a new criminal code. Some cynical pundits have suggested that moving the capital will mean that the politicians and bureaucrats won’t have to see the protests in their daily lives.

There are many construction projects underway, and the transport system is also being expanded. For example, here is the construction site of the Oasis Central Sudirman in Central Jakarta. This does not look like a city that is being abandoned.

I had timed my trip to see the opening of the high-speed railway and new LRT line, but both of those lines were delayed. My original plan was to arrive in Jakarta and get the train out. Instead, I had nearly two weeks to have a good look around the city. This was the longest I have spent in Jakarta in one trip, and it allowed me to explore some other areas that I haven’t been to. I stumbled into beautiful leafy neighbourhoods that you never see in the “Jakarta is doomed” news articles.

– Try telling the people living here that they are being moved to the jungle of Borneo –

This article is the first in a series of Jakarta posts. The next post will be about the future transit system, and the following article will be about the problems that Jakarta faces and how to fix them.

This trip report is a construction summary of Jakarta in August 2023.

I arrived via Soekarno–Hatta International Airport and got the dedicated airport railway. I had flown from Kualanamu Airport (Medan), which also has an airport railway. I can’t remember the last time I took a flight that had an airport railway at either end. Indonesia are the airport railway champion of Southeast Asia.

One of the reasons why Jakarta is such a confusing city is that there is no real city centre. There is an old town area (Kota Jakarta), which in any other city would be the centre. Kota is on the north coast, while the rest of Jakarta has grown out of control to the south.

The main road of Jakarta is Thamrin/Sudirman, which runs north to south through the city. The roundabout at Hotel Indonesia serves as a better city centre than the National Monument.

Oasis Central Sudirman

It is along Thamrin/Sudirman where you will see the most prestigious projects in the city. I stayed here for my first few nights, and this is where I saw the Oasis Central Sudirman (officially the Green Energy Superblock Oasis Central Sudirman)

The Oasis Central Sudirman is on one of the prime corners of Sudirman Road, not far from the BNI City airport railway station. It’s being promoted as “one of the tallest iconic green buildings in Indonesia”. At 331m, it is indeed one of the tallest, and the design looks like the iconic MahaNakhon Tower in Bangkok. I couldn’t find any information about why it is green. The project is a collaboration between Mitsubishi Estate and Taspen Group Indonesia. There is no official website, but it is definitely going ahead, as the construction photo can attest. I will keep a lookout for the official website.

Thamrin Nine

Off Thamrin Road is the Thamrin Nine project. The buildings have topped out, and the exterior work is almost finished. I couldn’t tell how tall it was because everything is big in this area. A sign proclaims it is the “tallest building in Indonesia and the entire Southern Hemisphere”.

The “largest x in the Southern Hemisphere” is a line that is often used in Australia, so I was surprised to see it being used here. The Autograph Tower of Thamrin Nine is 382.9 m, while the next future tallest building in Australia will “only” be 366m.

The podium of Thamrin Nine looks like the size of four malls in Australia, so I will be checking this out the next time I am here.

Fifty Seven Promenade

Near Thamrin Nine are the Fifty Seven Promenade apartment towers. The official website describes it as “One of kind waterfront living in Jakarta”. The advertising image shows the apartments in front of a lovely river or lake.

I was intrigued that there could be a body of water that looks like that in Jakarta. I couldn’t get a good photo of this building as it was surrounded by other buildings, so I went around to the other side of the water. Most of the houses on the other side of the water are in tightly packed lanes.

I arrived at the edge of the waterway to find a reservoir and a canal. The reservoir had a water plant at one end, and it was separated from the canal that ran by. You could tell this because the reservoir water was green while the canal water was black. Not quite the vision that is shown in the advertisement.

Two towers of Fifty Seven Promenade have been completed, while the Thamrin Nine project is behind it.

Indonesia-1 Towers

The most prominent stalled project is the Indonesia-1 Tower (a confusing name for a twin tower project). These towers were looking like they were going to be finished when I visited in 2019. Construction stopped during the pandemic, and they are still unfinished. The two towers are 303 metres high, and they are opposite the Bundaran HI Metro Station.

Lack of public space

One of the problems of Jakarta is the lack of public space. This is the side street next to UOB Plaza on Thamrin (built in 2007). There are no footpaths, let alone anywhere to sit away from the traffic.

M Bloc on the chopping block?

I met up with a friend who lives in South Jakarta, who suggested lunch in an area I hadn’t been to. This led me to discover appealing leafy neighbourhoods with cafes that I have seen in Bali (such as Anomali Coffee in Senopati).

After lunch, we visited the M Bloc creative event space. This is a classic example of adaptive reuse. The buildings here are part of an abandoned housing complex owned by the state-owned printing company Peruri.

This complex is the site of the proposed Peruri 88 tower. The tower is one of the most oddball designs I have seen for any tower in Southeast Asia (including many in Vietnam). The images in the linked article show that it would take up the area in M Bloc. It’s an old proposal and I haven’t found any recent updates, so maybe M Bloc lives on. I have flashbacks to a similar art complex in HCMC that was demolished for an office tower project.

Chinatown

A new addition to the city since my last visit is the Chinatown Arch in Glodok (the Chinatown of Jakarta). The arch was inaugurated in 2022, offering a clearly defined gateway to this neighbourhood.

Glodok is a run-down area, but its fortunes are set to change with the extension of the Metro Line. Glodok is a close walk to the old town area (one stop away at Kota on the future metro line). Maybe this area will finally reach its full potential. I will be keeping track of this area.

I will write more about the metro in my next article about the transit system of Jakarta.