So Long to SoHo?

It’s 2010 and you are heading to Staunton Street on the Mid-Levels escalator, the main pedestrian artery of SoHo (south of Hollywood Road). Thin skyscrapers lined up like stakes in a picket fence surround you, blotting out the sky. As you alight at your stop, you’re greeted by the blare and glare of honking horns and fluorescent lights. A cloud of exhaust hovers over the clogged road, with cars backed up around the bend. In this extension of the concrete jungle of Central, there are few reminders of SoHo’s lower-key past. Gone are the street stalls, dai pai dongs, cobblers and tailors. The cranky old man who juiced fresh carrots for ten bucks? Try the whitewashed minimalism of the newest chain smoothie shop. A half-decade of commercial and residential development has left the SoHo of the future a far cry from the SoHo
of our memories, the SoHo of today.

There are already tell-tale signs the area is in flux: Before you can bat an eye, new businesses - funky boutiques, jewelry shops, bars, restaurants and high-end salons - are taking the place of mom-and-pop eateries, copy shops and egg tart stands. But less apparent and considerably more dramatic changes are also underway. The Urban Renewal Authority (URA), the successor to the Land Development Corporation (LDC), has several sites in the area slated for redevelopment, which threaten to destroy some of SoHo’s most characteristic neighborhoods. If the 50-storey Henderson Land development (The Centre Stage) currently under construction between Hollywood Road and Bridges Street - a massive eyesore swathed in green mesh that looms over Staunton Street - is any omen of things to come, the future does not bode well for SoHo.

Good Morning, Wrecking Ball

Gallery owner and longtime SoHo resident John Batten fears that the area's fate is sealed, but he’s not backing down without a fight. Frustrated by the lack of government transparency in unveiling development plans, he put together a makeshift exhibit at John Batten Gallery that provides viewers a shocking glimpse of what’s in store for the neighborhood. Hand-scrawled and accompanied by photos, “Coming Near You: the Destruction of Central Hong Kong” ladles criticism on the city’s poor urban planning and presents Batten’s vision of the government’s redevelopment projects. It isn’t pretty.

“We are seeing the destruction of history and the maximization of every square inch, while people are pushed to the side,” he says.

People are indeed getting the boot as the wrecking ball prepares to wipe out an historic community on the fringes of SoHo, just off Bridges Street and stretching all the way to Ladder Street. In March 2003, the URA announced the redevelopment of its Staunton Street/Wing Lee Street site, with 4,460 square meters slated to be transformed into about 520 residential units, 2,800 square meters of retail space and 855 square meters of open space. Walk through the area now and you find a quiet neighborhood steeped in history: most of the 45 buildings to be demolished are three-storey structures occupied by residents and old shops - printers, even a silversmith - that have been around for more than half a century.

Already, signs of the once-vibrant community are fading. Former resident Mr. Yam, who lived in the neighborhood for more than 50 years, was forced to relocate to Quarry Bay to a home granted by the government. He is one of many residents who recently got their marching orders in preparation for the imminent redevelopment. “I feel helpless against the government,” Mr. Yam says of his displacement from the community. Still, the 73-year-old returns to the neighborhood daily to sit and chat with old friends, but says that with so many already gone and more on their way out, the place is not the same.
Development of the Staunton Street/Wing Lee Street site is on hold as the URA awaits the outcome of a judicial review following an application by a property developer with interests in the area. And while the URA is not forthcoming about the exact plans for the area, URA spokesperson Jimmy Sha assures that “the URA’s design plan will aim to reflect the interesting historic features and local characteristics as well as achieve a synergy with the trendy neighborhood in SoHo.”

It sounds good, but without knowing the property developer or much about the nature of the development, it seems risky to put blind trust in an organization charged with implementing the government’s urban-renewal strategy. As Batten puts it: “I don’t trust the bastards: the developers, the government, even myself as part of the community.”