Property analysts have raised doubts about the success of establishing a new central business district in Kowloon East, saying it may take a decade before the area will be ready for development.
The project will establish a second financial centre - double the size of Central - in an area that includes Kwun Tong, Kowloon Bay and the old Kai Tak airport site. It is part of Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's plans, announced in his policy speech last week, to increase the supply of office space and maintain Hong Kong's competitiveness. But Leland Sun, chairman of Pan Asian Mortgage, said he favoured expanding the Central CBD rather than building a new one in Kowloon.
'Transportation links will be key to making any area in Hong Kong a CBD. In addition, the neighbourhood should be conducive to a central business district,' he said.
'It would have been perfect for the government to buy back the former Prince of Wales building and not build the government headquarters at the Tamar site next door,' Sun said. The building is now the People's Liberation Army (PLA) headquarters.
This would have expanded the Central CBD to the edge of Wan Chai, up to the CITIC Tower along the harbour, providing millions of square feet of office space across Admiralty, where transport links are already in place, he said. 'It is still not too late to negotiate with the PLA,' Sun said.
Negotiations would take time - and it would take even longer to develop Kowloon East as a worthy home for companies without a transport link. Sun says the area will only be serviced by train in 2023, when a planned HK$12 billion monorail system is scheduled to open.