A luxury residential site in Repulse Bay fetched nearly HK$40,000 per buildable square foot yesterday, the second-highest price ever paid for government land in Hong Kong.
Tai Cheung Holdings outbid 10 other developers to win the 46,715 square foot site near 110 Repulse Bay Road for HK$1.668 billion, or about HK$39,673 per sq ft of maximum gross floor area.
The selling price is within five surveying firms' estimates of between HK$1.362 billion and HK$1.89 billion, or HK$32,395 to HK$45,000 per sq ft.
A site on Mount Kellett Road on The Peak - sold to Sun Hung Kai Properties in 2006 at a then world record price of HK$42,192 per sq ft - retains the crown for the highest price paid for government land in Hong Kong.
One analyst attributed the failure to break the record to today's economic climate.
'The reason it failed to become the most pricey site is there is more economic uncertainty now than in 2006,' said Vincent Cheung Kiu-cho, national director of valuation and advisory services at property broker Cushman & Wakefield.