CSI Properties Ltd. is planning to initiate a "dramatic change" in Hong Kong's Central district through the HK$15 billion joint development of a mixed-use commercial project with Wing Tai Properties Ltd., the South China Morning Post reported.
Mico Chung Cho-yee, CSI Properties' chairman, told the paper that the district would experience a marked change once the office-retail-hotel development is completed on the site C plot that the development partners won in October as a consortium.
Hong Kong's Urban Renewal Authority indicated during the awarding of the 2,685-square-meter site that the plot that was intended to have 40,275 square meters of office, hotel and retail elements, along with an open area spanning a minimum 1,310 square meters of space for public use once it is completed in 2021.
According to the report, Wing Tai and CSI Properties will respectively hold a 65% and a 35% interest in the proposed project, which forms part of the wider 5,330-square-meter Peel Street/Graham Street development site.
To secure the tender for the site, the Southwater Hong Kong Ltd. consortium outbid eight other shortlisted developers, including Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd., CK Asset Holdings Ltd., Henderson Land Development Co. Ltd., New World Development Co. Ltd. and Wheelock Properties Ltd. after bidding an undisclosed amount. Analysts cited by the Dec. 13 report tipped that the site could fetch HK$11.6 billion, making it the priciest site ever offered by the Hong Kong authority.
Aside from the development of the site C plot, CSI Properties is also working to build up its land bank through an alliance with Sino Land Co. Ltd., the publication noted, adding that the company acquired four sites in Central through private negotiations.
In the past seven years, the company clinched four land sites though government tenders by working in partnerships, allowing it to increase its total assets to upward of HK$23 billion from the HK$300 million figure recorded in 2004, the publication added.
