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Lone bidder Sun Hung Kai Properties wins West Kowloon commercial plot as tough market deters rival bids
- The Artist Square Tower Project comprises office, retail and entertainment features in the district billed as Hong Kong’s premier arts hub
- Rival developers are likely to have been put off by a property market struggling with rising interest rates and knock-on effects from the pandemic
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The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority has awarded a 65,000 square metre (699,654 square foot) parcel of land to a unit of Sun Hung Kai Properties, one of Hong Kong’s largest developers.
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SHKP was the lone bidder for the commercial plot, which was earlier forecast to fetch as much as HK$10.5 billion (US$1.3 billion).
The sale took place at a difficult time for Hong Kong’s property market, which is battling a triple whammy of rising interest rates, knock-on effects from the pandemic, and a slump in the city’s stock market.
This is likely to have deterred other developers from bidding, analysts said previously.
The Artist Square Tower Project, which comprises three buildings with office, retail, dining and entertainment features in the 40-hectare district billed as Hong Kong’s premier arts hub, was awarded to Winner Harvest Limited, a unit of SHKP, the authority said in a statement on Tuesday night.
“SHKP was awarded with the right to develop and operate the AST Project for a period of about 47 years under a Build-Operate-Transfer arrangement and will be responsible for the design, construction, financing, marketing, leasing, management, operation and maintenance of the AST Project,” the authority said.
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