US$1b venture with Sinolink and local partner will preserve historic buildings
The Rockefeller Group yesterday launched a long-awaited US$1 billion project on a prime site in the historic heart of Shanghai.
New York-based Rockefeller has teamed up with Shanghai New Huangpu Group (SNHG) and Hong Kong-listed Sinolink Worldwide Holdings to develop 180,834 square feet of riverside land on the Bund.
First conceived in August 2001, it involves some of the most valuable real estate in China, including the former British consulate and its large garden and 14 bank and commercial buildings from the 1920s and 1930s.
The city government wants to preserve the buildings and turn the area into an upmarket area of offices, luxury flats, museums, leisure facilities and public space.
It ordered government departments, including part of the Family Planning Bureau, to leave the former consulate and demolished an array of buildings around it. It also demolished a 10-storey building that housed the Friendship Store and gave the land to Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels, which is building its Shanghai Peninsula Hotel on the site.
Rockefeller Group and SNHG signed an agreement in May last year but work was delayed as residents who were due to be moved refused to accept the compensation offered to them and because of the tight conditions imposed by the government.