Located as part of this integrated development are three buildings dating from the early to mid-20th century: Capitol Theatre, once touted as the largest cinema in the East; an apartment block formerly called Namazie Mansions, and a building used for hotel and retail purposes formerly called Stamford House.
Along North Bridge Road, Capitol Theatre and the four-storey apartment block Namazie Mansions were commissioned by Mirza Mohamed Ali Namazie, a businessman of Persian origin, and completed in 1930. With its first-screening rights to overseas productions, Capitol Theatre became Singapore’s premier cinema. Next door, Namazie Mansions featured shops along the ground floor and housed apartments above.
Shaw Organisation acquired the buildings by 1946, making Capitol Theatre their flagship theatre with live entertainment and variety shows, while renaming Namazie Mansions first as Shaws Building in 1946, and then as Capitol Building in 1992 after an extensive renovation. Shaw went on to operate the theatre till 1998.
Along Stamford Road, the three-storey Stamford House was built in 1904 by Armenian businessman Seth Paul for European goods store Whiteaway, Laidlaw and Co., which occupied the building till 1915. In 1921, Armenian businessmen, the Sarkies Brothers, reopened the building as a hotel called The Grosvenor. Seth Paul’s daughter, Klara van Hien, took over in the 1930s and rechristened it Oranje Hotel. The Sindhi Lalwani family purchased it in 1963, renamed it to Stamford House, and ran the popular Bobby-O Department Store from 1971 till the building was acquired in 1987.
Awarded conservation status in 2007, the buildings underwent restoration and opened fully in 2018 as Capitol Singapore, an integrated hotel and shopping complex.
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