KOWLOON City Plaza, the newest shopping centre in the territory, is due to receive its occupation permit by the end of this month. The building's 630,000 square feet comprises 71/2 floors of retail space and 21/2 floors of car park space, with additional parking on the roof. The lower ground level to the fourth floor are built round a central atrium with a promotional area at the base. The plaza also contains two 400-seat cinemas. Restaurants and fast food outlets take up to one-third of the space on all floors. The centre is being developed by Stario Co, which bought the 63,734 sq ft site for $288 million in November 1989 when prices were low. Although 12 per cent of the territory's population lives within a two-kilometre radius of the plaza, Kowloon City is not a traditional shopping district. Neither is it near the MTR, nor adjacent to a major housing estate. Therefore, the sole leasing agent, Jones Lang Wootton, could have difficulty attracting good tenants. In an unusual move, the agents have decided not to have a department store as the anchor tenant. ''This was a deliberate decision,'' said director Mr Edmond Hsu. ''A department store would only fill a maximum of 150,000 sq ft, and we felt that the focus would then be on the store rather than the other tenants. ''We didn't want Kowloon City Plaza to look like just another shopping centre. We, therefore, encouraged tenants to take a large space.'' Marketing began in earnest last November, and Mr Hsu said that overall 80 per cent of the space had been leased. Major anchor tenants are paying between $25-$40 per sq ft (psf) of lettable space. Small shops are paying $60-$100 psf,with $100 psf being achieved even on the second and third floors. Most floors have a theme. Basement one concentrates on food, the lower ground floor places special emphasis on women's fashion boutiques and accessories, and the upper ground floor concentrates on general retailing, with shops such as Crocodile, Puma, and Giordano. The theme of the first floor is home appliances and furnishings, electrical and audio visual trades. Main tenants include Fortress, KPS and Design Europe. The anchor tenant on the second floor is Vincci Shoe Mart and all other tenants are complementary to Vincci. The third floor was originally intended to be for children, but this proved to be too difficult, and the theme of ''young, fun, action and hobby'' is how being built round Whimsy, Bunn's Diving and Boy London. The fourth floor features Furniture and Households Square but consists predominantly of restaurants.
