HK$2b bid wins Tseung Kwan O site for Wheelock

Wheelock Properties has won its second site in Tseung Kwan O with a bid of HK$1.97 billion.

The Lands Department said the developer paid HK$4,580 per square foot - 7 per cent less than an adjacent site sold to Lai Sun Development and Walter Kwok Ping-sheung, a former chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties, last month.

Yesterday's price was near the lower end of market expectations of between HK$1.94 billion and HK$2.12 billion. There were five other bidders.

Another residential site, at Kwun Chung Street in Jordan, went to small developer Rykadan Capital for HK$194 million, or HK$7,344 per square foot.

"Both prices are within my expectations," said Vincent Cheung Kiu-cho, the national director for greater China at property consultant Cushman & Wakefield. "It is reasonable that this Tseung Kwan O site is cheaper than the adjacent site. Lai Sun and Walter Kwok are a new consortium, so they had to pay a premium."

Cheung said Wheelock could achieve a reasonable profit if the average selling price reached HK$8,000 per square foot.

Wheelock's managing director Ricky Wong Kwong-yiu expects the flats to be sold at more than HK$10,000 per square foot. He said the firm planned to invest about HK$4.3 billion in the project, which would offer luxury flats of between 700 and 1,000 sq ft in size, and about a dozen houses of between 2,000 and 3,000 sq ft.