Kwai Chung industrial building to be converted into a 10-storey mall
Sun Hung Kai Properties to take advantage of HK revitalization scheme to turn 40-year-old industrial facility into 10-storey shopping outlet
The Hong Kong government's scheme to revitalise old industrial buildings has encouraged developer Sun Hung Kai Properties to invest in turning a 40-year-old industrial building into a shopping mall.
Fiona Chung Sau-lin, general manager of the leasing department at SHKP, said the company will begin work on converting the Luen Tai Industrial Building on Kwai Chung Road in Kwai Chung into a mall this month. The mall is expected to open for business in the middle of 2015.
The government's revitalisation plan, unveiled in 2009, aims to encourage owners of old industrial buildings to carry out redevelopments. Owners of the buildings are exempt from paying land premiums for converting the buildings to other uses.
"Our new mall will be the first conversion to a shopping mall under the revitalisation scheme," said Chung. "But it is not our first revitalisation of an old industrial district. We completed the development of the first phase of Millennium City in the old industrial area of Kwun Tong in 1998 and the shopping mall, apm, opened in 2005 together with an office tower, Millennium City 5. It took about seven years to transform the industrial area into a new commercial area."
Millennium City now offers 330 million sq ft of office space and 600,000 sq ft of retail space, making it the largest commercial development in East Kowloon.
In the Kwai Chung industrial district, Sun Hung Kai built Kowloon Commerce Centre (KCC), opposite the Luen Tai Industrial Building. The first office tower in the project was completed in 2008 and the second in August this year.