[MIP] 4x Fujitec Main Elevators @ Paradox Merchant Court****, Singapore River, Singapore

This resort-style hotel adjacent to Singapore River is located on the former site of Ellenborough Market, which was established in 1845 but burned down in the great fire of 1968. This was then replaced by two HDB blocks linked by a podium, which incorporated a new wet market with a hawker center above. The apartment buildings were sold en-bloc in 1995, and subsequently demolished to make way for this hotel, as the surrounding area was redeveloped as a pedestrian-friendly retail and lifestyle district. The hotel, originally named Merchant Court Hotel after a street that ran next to it, was initially operated by Raffles International; the hotel's moniker was later expanded as the business hotel brand of the Raffles chain, with additional locations opening in Bangkok and Sydney. Soon after Raffles bought out the Swissôtel brand in 2001, all existing and future Merchant Court locations were merged into the Swissôtel portfolio, including this hotel; hence it was known as Swissôtel Merchant Court for years. The hotel's management was transferred to French hospitality conglomerate Accor upon its acquisition of Swissôtel alongside Raffles and Fairmont brands. It left the Swissôtel chain in 2022, when the hotel's owner, TA Global, decided to not renew the management contract with Accor and instead integrate the property into its own nascent hotel brand called Paradox Hotel Group. The hotel building, with 13 above-ground floors and two below, featured distinctively colonial-style elements such as pitched roofs, tall vaulted ceilings in the lobby area, and an elevated courtyard on the second floor featuring a lush landscaped garden and a tiered swimming pool. The ground floor featured the Crossroads Bar right adjacent to the reception, and a riverside buffet restaurant named Ellenborough Market Café after the hotel's predecessor, alongside multiple banquet rooms and management offices. A mechanical mezzanine was sandwiched between this and the second floor. The second floor, aside from the aforementioned courtyard and swimming pool, also featured a poolside restaurant name Blue Potato and a gym. The rooms, of which there were 476 in total, were located on floors 3 to 12. An executive lounge was also on the 11th floor for guests of certain rooms and suites. Parking was located on the two basement floors, with basement 1 also housing the loading dock and back-of-house complex. A total of ten elevators had been installed within the building with all units originally having been of Fujitec's Exceldyne ii model, which had been just released while the building was still under construction. As of January 2026, these were being modernized by Fujitec, possibly into newer ZEXIA models, though none of the units had finished being modernized yet. Among those, this video features the set of four elevators serving the courtyard level and all guest floors; at the time of filming, one out of the four cars was down for modernization. The original units featured the early version of dot-matrix indicators with right-aligned numbers and gray soft touch buttons, though those on the COPs had been replaced by round Dewhurst buttons commonly found in HDB apartment buildings. The cabs featured a simple design of ceramic floors and brown acrylic walls, as well as a soft, recessed lighting scheme. The mechanical mezzanine, which was skipped by these elevators, was indicated with a dash (–) as per Fujitec's standard method for denoting non-serviced floors. The ride quality was quite smooth especially considering their age. They were a bit on the slow side especially considering the hotel's age however, and with one car under modernization that resulted in the remaining units becoming quite busy. Manufacturer: Fujitec Singapore Corporation Ltd Model name: Exceldyne ii Year of commission: 1996 Loading: 1,360kg (3,000lbs) Capacity: 20 persons Full speed: 1.75m/s (350FPM) Serviced floors: *1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12