Butterworth's PPC complex

A few days ago, I made a passing reference to the Penang Port Commission Complex (PPC Complex) in Butterworth when writing about the 1988 ferry terminal tragedy. I used to pass through that building regularly on my way to work from about 1980 to 2000. Not quite every day, but often enough. Slightly more than 20 years of ferry commuting. So yes, I knew the place quite well. Here’s what I remember.

Not many people think about it now, but the old PPC Complex didn’t just fade away quietly. It went out in a blaze, literally. On 20 May 2001, at about five o'clock in the morning, a fire broke out in the building which most people simply called the Butterworth bus terminal. The fire started on the upper floors where the Parkson Ria Department Store and Tops were located. It was a major one which took the firefighters nearly 12 hours to bring it fully under control, only around five in the evening.

By then the damage was severe. The top floor, including parts of the roof, was badly gutted. The rest of the building was no longer usable. Not long after that, the whole structure was demolished. Today, Penang Sentral stands on the same spot.

The building itself went back to the mid-1970s. It was completed in 1976 at a cost of about RM3.5 million, which in those days was not small money. It was considered quite modern then. The ground floor housed a 24-bay bus terminal, along with a police post, ticket counters and taxi stands. And once you came down the staircases, taxi drivers and bus touts would be calling out, each trying to pull you towards their taxis or ticket counters.

The first floor was where the small retail shops and food stalls were located. That was where people hung around, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Nothing fanciful here. Just everyday things, cheap food and a place to wait for connecting buses. Up on the top floor was the shopping area. Emporium Holdings was one of the early tenants before Parkson Ria came in later. At one time there was even a small cinema.

This Parkson Ria outlet, in particular, was one of the places on the mainland to shop in the 1990s. I remember once being there with the whole family when my son, probably three or four years old at the time, decided to play hide and seek among the clothes racks. One moment he was there, the next moment he was gone. With all those unverified stories going around then about children being abducted, we were alarmed and started searching frantically, calling out his name. He remained quiet and then suddenly, out he popped from between the racks, grinning away. For that little stunt, his reward was a quick smack on his bottom.

The PPC Complex wasn’t just a building. For many people it was part of daily life. Students passed through it on their way to school. Workers used it every day, taking buses and ferries across to the island. On the odd occasion, I would be there too, waiting for a bus back to Seberang Jaya when my car wasn’t available. It was also a convenient meeting point, the sort of place where people would say, “wait for me at the bus terminal,” and everyone knew exactly where that meant. And then there were those who went there to lepak, simply not knowing what to do with their time. People lingering, watching the world go by, making the place feel alive. And the occasional students playing truant, trying to blend into the crowd, though not always successfully.

The complex was linked to the Butterworth railway station by a long covered overhead walkway, maybe a hundred or two hundred metres. Somewhere along that stretch, a branch veered off to the ferry terminal. That was where foot passengers bought their tickets, passed through the turnstile and waited for the next ferry. I remember always having a book with me, thanks to my British Council Library membership. Waiting time was reading time, whether in the terminal or on the ferry itself. And it was that very ferry terminal that collapsed in 1988.

After the fire and demolition, the area went quiet. Buses and taxis were forced to operate from somewhere else close enough. Then, years later, something new rose in its place. Penang Sentral, opened at the end of 2018. Clean, modern, efficient. Everything the old complex was not.

But for those of us who remember, the old PPC Complex was never just a bus terminal. It was a meeting point, a waiting place, part of the rhythm of daily life. A bit chaotic, a bit worn, but very much alive in its time. Now, like so many things in Butterworth, it lives on only in memory.

#penangportcommission #ppc #butterworth