Located in the Downtown Core underneath Republic Avenue near the Kallang River, the station serves commercial and residential developments along Nicoll Highway, such as the Golden Mile Complex and The Concourse.

During the construction, the tunnels linking to the original station site caved in along with the highway on 20 April 2004, killing four people.

Following an investigation, which found human error and organisational failures as causes of the collapse, the station was relocated.

Nicoll Highway station features a public artwork Re-claiming the Peripherals by Khiew Huey Chian, consisting of four reliefs depicting wild plants.

[8][10][11] Starting on 16 March 2002, a section of the Nicoll Highway from Ophir Road to Merdeka Bridge had to be temporarily diverted for the station's construction, with the bus stops shifted accordingly.

Meanwhile, the surrounding buildings were monitored for their stability with additional settlement markers and electro-level beams installed at the nearby Golden Mile Complex.

[24][25] The remaining equipment and material at the site were buried under infill rather than retrieved to avoid risking further collapse.

[28][29] An investigation report by a Committee of Inquiry (COI) concluded that the incident could have been prevented and was caused by human error and organisational failures.

[30] The strut-waler support system was poorly designed and was weaker than it should have been, while there was a lack of monitoring and proper management of data.

[38] The new station was built using the top-down method while the 1.8 km (1.1 miles) of tunnels were bored through,[39] minimising the impact on the environment.

[38] On 29 September 2005, the LTA marked the start of the new station's construction with a groundbreaking ceremony,[41] during which the diaphragm walls were first installed.

[43] On 26 January 2010, Raymond Lim, the transport minister, announced that the station, together with the rest of CCL Stages 1 and 2, would begin operations on 17 April that year.

[45][46] As the name suggests, the station is located near Nicoll Highway underneath Republic Avenue,[39] in the Central Region of Singapore.

The artwork consists of four 6 by 1 m (19.7 by 3.3 ft) reliefs displayed over the platform doors, depicting often-overlooked wild plants in various shapes and formations.

[59][60] These plants had been crucial in preventing soil erosion of the reclaimed land on which the station is presently located,[61] and had also left a deep impression on Khiew during his youth.

[63] It was initially intended for his work to be spread across the platforms' entire length above the screen doors to represent the highway.