The Spring Kuching is the city’s original modern shopping mall, on Jalan Simpang Tiga since 2008, and it’s still the mall half of Kuching means when nobody bothers naming one. It runs three floors plus a basement, holds a supermarket, a food court, a cinema and around 150 shops, and opens 10am to 10pm daily like every other mall in town.
I’m in here most weeks, largely because it sits roughly halfway between Padungan and Stutong and a surprising number of Kuching’s errands seem to route past it whether you plan them to or not. It hasn’t been the newest or biggest since Vivacity Megamall opened, and which mall wins which errand is a fair question in a city that now has several. But The Spring keeps its grip on the city’s habits, and that’s worth understanding on its own terms.
TL;DR
- The Spring opened in 2008 on Jalan Simpang Tiga and was Kuching’s first properly modern shopping mall, which is why so many people still default to meeting there.
- It has a food court (the FoodBazaar), a Ta Kiong supermarket on the ground floor, a GSC cinema, and roughly 150 shops across three floors and a basement; Sushi King, Potato Story and Signature Market are the food names worth seeking out.
- Vivacity Megamall has since taken over as Kuching’s biggest and most modern mall; The Spring is now the older sibling, not the flashy one.
- Weekday mornings are close to empty; weekends from about 2pm to 6pm get packed, with food court queues stretching past the tables.
- The car park is genuinely tight for a mall this size, and several shop lots have sat empty or changed hands more than once in recent years.
- A basic food court meal runs RM8 to RM15; a sit-down restaurant inside costs closer to RM25 to RM45 a head.
How Old Is The Spring, and Why Do People Still Default to It?
The Spring opened in 2008 on Jalan Simpang Tiga, and for a good few years afterward nobody needed to specify which mall they meant: it was the first place in the city where chain stores, escalators and eventually a multiplex cinema added up to what people now mean by a mall. Kuching had shopping centres before it, but The Spring was the first built at the scale people now expect, and it arrived years before Vivacity Megamall or Aeon Mall Kuching Central.
That first-mover status is most of the reason it’s still the default. A lot of Kuching residents in their thirties and forties grew up treating The Spring as the mall, full stop.
I still hear people say “meet me at Spring” the way we’d say “meet me at the precinct” back in Manchester, precinct being our word for an indoor shopping centre. It’s shorthand, and it survives because for a long stretch of Kuching’s recent history, there wasn’t another mall worth naming.
What’s Actually in The Spring, Floor by Floor?
The Spring is a long, low-slung building rather than a tower, and it reads as a series of connected wings more than one open floor plan. The ground floor holds a Ta Kiong supermarket, which is where I do the boring weekly shop when I can’t be bothered driving further out.
Ground and first floor carry the usual Malaysian mall regulars: Uniqlo, Padini, a phone-accessories strip, a couple of banks, and telco service counters. Higher up, the mix shifts toward homeware, electronics and a GSC cinema on the top floor.
None of it is glamorous. The Spring is Kuching’s everyday errand mall, and it makes no attempt to be anything else.
Does The Spring Have a Food Court, and Is It Worth Eating There?
Yes. The food court trades as FoodBazaar, and it’s one of the better reasons to come here rather than just tolerate the place. Beyond the food court itself, three names are worth seeking out in the mall: Sushi King on the ground floor for a fast sushi-and-donburi fix, Potato Story’s second-floor kiosk for the loaded fries Kuching’s teenagers seem to survive on, and Signature Market’s ground-floor shop for healthier snacks once you’ve had enough fried food for the week.
A basic food court meal runs RM8 to RM15, and the sit-down restaurants elsewhere in the mall, mostly Malaysian and Chinese chains, land closer to RM25 to RM45 a head, roughly what Vivacity’s food floor charges across town. Those are the numbers worth pencilling into what a month in Kuching actually costs if you’re budgeting a move rather than a visit.
How Many Shops Are in The Spring, and Who Owns It?
Published counts put the mall anywhere from about 130 to just over 170 outlets depending on who’s counting and when, and around 150 roughly tracks with what you’d count walking every floor yourself. It was built and is still owned by PSB Realty Development Sdn Bhd, and the day-to-day running sits with The Spring Management Services Sdn Bhd, the Sarawak outfit that also manages the mall’s sister property in Bintulu.
Knowing who owns a mall rarely changes how you shop in it, but it matters if you’re chasing down a lease dispute, a facilities complaint or a filming permit, all of which route through the operator rather than any individual tenant.
Is The Spring or Vivacity the Biggest Mall in Kuching?
Ask ten people and most will say Vivacity, and they’re right on the numbers that get cited most often: it’s newer, has more floor space, and pulls a slightly wider range of brands. The Spring spent years holding the loudest claim to “biggest in Kuching”, and Vivacity took that title outright the day it opened.
What The Spring still has going for it is location and habit rather than scale. Many of the fashion chains (Padini among them) turn up in both malls anyway, so the practical decision usually comes down to which one is closer to your afternoon, not which one stocks something exclusive.
When Should You Actually Go, and Where Do You Park?
Weekday mornings here are close to dead. You can park directly outside the entrance you want and walk the whole ground floor without dodging another trolley.
That changes fast on weekends: from about 2pm onward on a Saturday or Sunday, the car park fills, the food court queues stretch past the tables, and finding a bay on the ground level turns into a genuine ten-minute circling exercise.
The downside I won’t dress up: The Spring’s car park is smaller and more awkwardly laid out than Vivacity’s, the older wings show their age in flickering signage and dated tiling, and several shop lots have sat empty or changed hands more than once in the past couple of years. It isn’t falling apart. It also isn’t being reinvested in at the same pace as the newer malls, and if you’re choosing purely on comfort and polish, that’s a real mark against it.
So Is The Spring Still Worth the Trip?
I keep coming back most weeks, not because The Spring edges out every other mall in town, but because it’s already on my route home from Stutong, and habit moves faster than marketing. Choosing fresh, with no routine pulling you here, you’d probably pick Vivacity for the polish. The Spring wins on knowing exactly where the toilets are without checking a map.
Last updated: July 2026. Mall hours, food court tenants, shop count and ownership checked against The Spring’s own listings and public records, July 2026.