Science Park opens, Philips signs on
The Government's flagship Science Park opened on Thursday, hours after Dutch electronics giant Philips signed on to take up nearly a whole building for research and development from next year.
The news gave a much-needed boost to the HK$12 billion project in Tai Po amid criticism it had only attracted enough tenants to fill about half the 410,000 square feet of office space for lease between now and the end of next year. With Philips, this is now raised to 70 per cent.
Philips is also studying whether to move its headquarters from Wan Chai to another government-invested project, Cyberport in Pokfulam. It announced in April a plan to make Hong Kong the site of its regional headquarters after moving out of Singapore.
The company, which is expected to rent about 70 per cent of office space in a six-storey building at Science Park with a gross floor area of 125,000 sqft, agreed to sign the lease late on Wednesday night.
''I only heard it this morning. They did it after I left the office last night,'' the park's deputy chief executive, Bernard Lam Moon-tim, said yesterday.
Tenants have been given generous rent concessions, but Mr Lam declined to disclose details of Philips' lease conditions, saying only most tenants would end up paying an average of US$1 per square foot a month.
Building seven will be ready at the end of next year for Philips, making the company the park's 17th corporate tenant and the one leasing the most amount of office space and with the most recognisable brand.
A total of nine buildings all to be ready at the end of next year make up the first of the park's three construction phases.
Two of these buildings, along with a car park, opened yesterday just ahead of the July 1 start of the second term of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.
Mr Tung announced the controversial project to help establish Hong Kong as a regional technology hub in his maiden policy address in 1997.
Philips East Asia chief executive Rob Westerhof said the park office would be used for R&D as well as design operations for semiconductors and electronic components.
Philips' R&D operations are dispersed in a number of locations in Kowloon Tong and Kwai Chung, Mr Westerhof said, and the aim was to concentrate these operations in the park. About 400 staff members would initially be assigned to the new office.
''[Later] there will be more R&D [staff] coming from Europe to Hong Kong,'' he said.
Mr Westerhof said an important reason the company chose the park was its proximity to the mainland, where it had many technology co-operation projects.
''We also plan to co-operate with the Chinese University, which is also very close to the park,'' he said.
