It was once the top spot to shop for foreign goods before the mainland opened up in the early 1980s.
At 250 metres long and just four metres wide, Chung Ying Street in the border town of Sha Tau Kok may have been a dot on the world's commercial landscape but it was the only place mainlanders could buy much-sought-after products from overseas.
At its peak, it attracted about 120,000 shoppers a day.
Its fortunes waned over the years as cut-throat competition on both sides of the border cut into its trade, but the local government is banking on a new plan to restore it to some of its past glory. Shenzhen authorities have appointed the state-owned Shenzhen Sha Tou Jiao Commercial Foreign Trade Company to develop the street so that it once again becomes a shopping destination for mainland tourists.
The company has teamed up with investors Hong Kong Bestport Consultant International and Japan Eastasia Group and expects the project to be completed in 2012.
The redevelopment involves buying up some 13 buildings in the street, of which all but one have already been acquired by the city government, according to one of the investors.
'We will renovate the buildings one by one after ownership is acquired. Our company will invest a total of HK$200 million in the project,' Bestport Consultant International managing director Ngai Po-shing said yesterday.