Mid-tier developer Kerry Properties has teamed up with Shangri-La Asia and Allgreen Properties to develop a commercial-residential-hotel complex in Tianjin with an investment cost of 4.52 billion yuan. Kerry said it would pay Shangri-La 313.13 million yuan for a 49 per cent stake in a company called Tianjin Kerry Real Estate Development. The deal also included a proportionate shareholders' loan of US$6.21 million. The project will provide a gross floor area of 499,000 square metres in Tianjin's Hedong district, near the city's railway station. Singapore-based Allgreen will take a 31 per cent stake in the project for 198.1 million yuan together with its portion of US$3.93 million shareholders' loan. Kerry, Shangri-La and Allgreen are controlled by the Kuok Group, which is also the controlling shareholder of the SCMP Group, which publishes the South China Morning Post. Kerry said the investment cost of the Tianjin project was estimated at 4.52 billion yuan but it could rise to five billion yuan. This is the latest mainland property project invested by Kerry, which last month bought a 7,900 square metre commercial site in Shenzhen's Futian district for 645 million yuan. Construction of the Tianjin project was scheduled to start in the fourth quarter and would be completed in late 2009, the company said. DTZ Debenham Tie Leung said the site was not located at the core central business district but the general manager of the property consultant's Tianjin office, Johnny Zhao Yong, expected the business district would be expanded to the Hedong area, taking into account the fast economic development in the city. According to DTZ, grade A offices in Tianjin averaged 100.40 yuan per square metre per month (including management fees), a modest rise from the past quarter. Mr Zhao said there were not many grade A office buildings in the city at the moment but the supply was increasing. In the next 12 months, at least three grade A office projects, comprising a total floor area of 107,000 sq metres, would be completed. In the first quarter, residential prices in the city rose 2.3 per cent quarter on quarter to 4,804 yuan per square metre. The price did not factor in the impact of the central government's latest series of measures to curb soaring prices in the property market.