The MTR Corporation yesterday retendered the Tsuen Wan West Bayside waterfront residential site, a day after it withdrew another site from tender due to poor offers.
The railway operator invited 14 developers - including Sun Hung Kai Properties, Henderson Land, Cheung Kong and Wheelock Properties - which expressed interest in the site last month to rebid for the project on or before August 8.
The retender process came about half a year after the MTR Corp withdrew the tender because the offers submitted by the four bidders last year was too low.
On Monday, the MTR Corp made its second withdrawal this year, pulling the Tai Wai site in Che Kung Miu Road from tender because the three bids received from Sun Hung Kai Properties, Cheung Kong, Sino Land and a consortium of New World Development, Nan Fung Development and Wheelock Properties failed to meet expectations.
'If the government hasn't largely lowered the reserve price of the Tsuen Wan site, I think the chance that it would be pulled from tender again would be very high,' said Vincent Cheung Kiu-cho, national director for valuation at real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield.
Cheung expected that developers' bidding appetite would be affected by the withdrawal of the Tai Wai site. He lowered the estimated price of the site to HK$8.38 billion, or HK$3,750 per sq ft, from HK$9.07 billion, or HK$4,061 per sq ft, earlier this year. His firm predicted last year that the site was worth about HK$10 billion, or HK$4,500 per sq ft last year.
Centaline Surveyors director James Cheung King-tat forecasts that the site will be sold for HK$7.37 billion, or HK$3,300 per sq ft.
