Evergrande, Trump eye Guangzhou tower
Guangzhou-based Evergrande Real Estate Group has teamed up with developer Donald Trump of the United States and a Hong Kong-based fund to bid on developing a landmark office tower in Guangzhou, sources said.
The consortium will vie for the development rights of the East Tower, one of the Guangzhou Twin Tower projects in the Zhujiang New Town financial centre.
Developers are expected to be invited to bid - with offers at an estimated four billion yuan to five billion yuan - in the second quarter.
This will be the Trump organisation's first development on the mainland if the consortium wins the tender for the skyscraper.
The third partner in the consortium is Orient Property Group.
The East Tower project has a site area of 26,000 square metres and 360,000 sqmetres of buildable gross floor area.
The project is expected to be completed in 2013, with a tower of 400 metres to 450 metres, making it the city's tallest building. At present, the tallest building in Guangzhou is Citic Plaza at 391 metres.
It is designed as a mixed-use development, which may include grade A office space, retail space, a five-star hotel and luxury flats.
Apart from the Evergrande-Trump consortium, Sun Hung Kai Properties reportedly will team up with city government-backed Guangzhou City Construction & Development Property Holdings to bid on the project.
SHKP declined to comment last night.
Guangzhou City Construction & Development has already obtained the development rights for the West Tower.
Edward Cheung Kwok-ching, chief executive for property consultant DTZ's mainland division, expects the central government to increase level of austerity measures to prevent an overheating of the economy.
This could include increasing interest rates, requiring banks to boost their reserve ratios and tightening bank loans to curb the growth of housing prices.
However, Mr Cheung said investor interest in the property market would continue to grow in a sound economy.
He was particularly upbeat on the residential sector in Chengdu, Tianjin and Shenyang, saying these rapidly growing cities were attracting large amounts of foreign direct investment.
