Construction to begin on arts hub 15 years after proposal
First building of the long-awaited West Kowloon Cultural District to break ground next month, a decade and a half after it was conceived
Construction of the first building for the West Kowloon Cultural District will finally kick off at the end of next month - 15 years after the project was first proposed.
The Xiqu Centre will break ground with a design modified from the one first put forward, after the elimination of two floors to keep surging costs down.
Digging the ground to create a basement car park is expensive. In future the basement car park will be reserved for staff and artists, which is the same as the arrangement for the Cultural Centre
The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority says the centre will facilitate the development of Chinese opera through events such as seminars on the art form, and its Bamboo Theatre, which will host performances.
The cultural district's performing arts chief Louis Yu Kwok-lit confirmed a ground-breaking ceremony would be held at the end of September to kick off construction.
The idea of building a "state-of-the-art performance venue on the West Kowloon reclamation land" to promote tourism was first put forward in the 1998 policy address by former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, but the project faced a series of delays.
The design of the Xiqu Centre has been finalised. A public car park in the basement of the building that would have held up to 100 cars did not make the final design. A floor for retailers has also been taken out.
Yu said these changes had helped lower the cost of the building from HK$2.7 billion to between HK$2.5 billion and HK$2.6 billion.