Hong Kong to sell ‘iconic’ site on Victoria Harbour in coming quarter to boost market confidence
- Bids will be weighed 50-50 for design and price, development secretary says
- Plot is currently valued at HK$40 billion, about a fifth lower than what its value was in January
The Hong Kong government will sell a site along the city’s Victoria Harbour to boost market confidence in the coming quarter, it said on Friday.
The 4.76 hectare (512,362 sq ft) site, called New Central Harbourfront Site 3, is sandwiched between City Hall to the south, the Central Ferry Piers to the north, and IFC to the west. As big as about 38 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the site can yield about 1.6 million sq ft in gross floor area for commercial purposes.
The government will drop its traditional approach of highest bidder wins for the sale. “Money is not our only consideration, but the government will not sell the land at a huge discount. Bids will be weighed 50-50 for design and price,” Michael Wong Wai-lun, the city’s Secretary for Development, said.
“Although commercial rents are dropping and office vacancy rates are rising, we cannot leave commercial plots to gather dust – that will damage Hong Kong’s competitiveness as an international financial and business centre,” he added.
“It is the last site that is so strategically located and is so iconic. Its proper design and utilisation is very important to our future economic development.”
Hong Kong’s economy shrank 8.9 per cent last quarter from a year earlier for its worst three-month period on record, and the city’s unemployment rate surged 5.9 per cent in the three months ending May 31, surpassing a 5.5 per cent rise recording during the global financial crisis in 2009. The city’s anti-government protests and the coronavirus pandemic had hit the economy hard, which has recently been rocked by rising tensions between the United States and China over Beijing’s new security law for the city.