What Emperor Qianlong might make of the inexorable march of progress is a whimsical question, but HKI Properties certainly has no doubt about the thinking of latter-day Beijing citizens when the developer brings phase2 of the project to the market this month.

'With such a history, living or working in Beijing Fortune Plaza will bring you luck and fortune,' said HKI executive director Emil Ng Loi-sing.

The brash encouragement comes just weeks ahead of the sale by HKI of 180 flats in the 60-storey Fortune Heights - part of the second phase development of Beijing Fortune Plaza - at an average price of 40,000 yuan per square metre. The most expensive unit will be offered for as much as about 80,000 yuan per square metre.

Less mystical, or more hard-bitten, property consultants scoff at the historical arguments for buying units in the location, but come up with the same vote of approval.

'With its good location the value of the project will see growth potential,' said Jason Yang, senior research manager of Colliers International's Beijing office.

This is because the location that so long ago delighted the eye of an emperor has since become the central business district of Beijing. 'Supply in Beijing's CBD is very limited but demand is strong,' Mr Yang said.

Located on east third-ring road, the project is close to the World Trade Centre and CCTV headquarters complex. The sizes of the units on offer from this month will range from 200 metres to more than 400 metres - double the average size of Beijing flats at between 100 and 200 metres. At an average price of 40,000 yuan per square metre, asking prices will range from eight million yuan to 16 million yuan, while the most expensive unit will cost more than 32 million yuan.

Mr Ng said the prices were reasonable when compared to similar projects.

Typical units of Park Hyatt Residences, for example, in the Beijing Yintai Centre in Chaoyang district are being sold at an average of 42,000 yuan per square metre, according to developer China Yintai Holdings.

Mr Ng said the property was targeted at the super rich of Beijing's and wealthy buyers in cities as far afield as Shenzhen and Shanghai who wanted to have a home in the capital.

Property consultants said prospective buyers would take into account projections of the state of the property market and economy after next year's Olympic Games.

Spurred by the Games, home prices in Beijing have risen at a fast clip in the past few months.

In June, prices of new homes in the city were up 9.5 per cent year on year.

But at the end of June the government-controlled Beijing Olympics Economic Research Institute warned enthusiastic buyers that Beijing home prices were likely to fall after the Games. Buyers had been overly optimistic in assessing the positive impact of the Games, the institute said in report.

Based on an estimated growth of 200,000 families every year between 2005 and 2010, annual demand for new flats in Beijing worked out to 20 million square metres, way below the supply in the pipeline, it warned.

But Mr Ng argued that Beijing would lure more buyers from other cities as its living environment had been improving with the infrastructure built over the past few years.

Mr Yang agreed. But he said buyers who wanted to purchase the flats for lease should be prepared for lower rental returns. The average rental yield was about 4 per cent because rental inflation had failed to keep pace with capital value appreciation, he said.

Mr Ng predicted that rental returns offered by flats in Fortune Heights would reach 8 per cent to 10 per cent, with expected monthly rents of between US$30 and US$40 per metre.

At a height of 199 metres, Fortune Heights is one of the five towers within Fortune Plaza and will be ready for occupancy in October next year.

The first phase of 250,000 sq metres of residential and office space was sold out in 2005. The second phase includes Fortune Heights, 37,000 sq metres of shopping space and a five-star hotel managed by Millennium & Copthorne Hotels. The third phase will feature a 260-metre office tower on which construction work will begin by the end of this year.