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Colleen Lee

A green group will apply to the Town Planning Board today to keep Wan Chai market intact and oppose a  developer's plan to build a 39-storey residential tower atop the two-storey historic building.
Green Sense president Roy Tam Hoi-pong  said it would propose using the site of the Lui Kee Education Services Centre,  opposite the  market on Queen's Road East,  or other sites to exchange with Chinese Estates Holdings, which owns the site.
'Building a 39-storey high-rise atop the two-storey historic market is absolutely not proportional,' he said. 'It will also be an insult to the architect of the market.'
Mr Tam said even though the merging of old and new buildings was common overseas, such a redevelopment plan would become an international laughing stock as the proposed high-rise was  not proportional  to the 71-year-old Bauhaus-styled market.
He was also worried that the new residential complex would lead to heavier traffic in the business district and affect ventilation to low-rise residential buildings in the area.
The Urban Renewal Authority had said only 40 per cent of the market's gross floor area would be preserved under the plan as it had to make way for pilings for the foundations on which a car park and residential complex would be built.
The area to be preserved comprises the main facade, including the main entrance, the curved canopy and fins, and part of the front portion of the structure.
Mr Tam said he was 'very disappointed' that the Antiquities Advisory Board  had not raised an objection to the developer's plan.
'We know that it is not easy to change the developer's plan, but we must do something,' he said.
Chinese Estates has been granted rights to raze the market and build a residential tower in its place, but it recently agreed to keep the facade of the market in view of public appeals for preservation.
The market is a grade-three listed building, which means it has some architectural merit but does not qualify for consideration as a declared monument.



Group opposes tower plan at market site