Wan Chai’s old district has undergone rapid transformation
In recent years, Swire Properties (01972), a development project in Rio Tinto, and its Wanchai Queen’s Road East Baohua Building Redevelopment Project (hereinafter referred to as the Queen’s Road East Project) have officially approved plans. With the approval of the building plans, a 32-storey (including 4-storey basement) commercial building can be constructed in the relevant lot, further expanding the territory of Hong Kong Island Commercial Building Kingdom. In addition, the property market weakened in the second half of last year, and the number of private residential units started was greatly reduced. The department recorded 9,218 starts in the first 11 months of last year (according to the building department’s notice of the start of construction works), the first in 2014. Recorded a 5-year low since 5,942 units in 11 months.
Buildings Department approved 21 plans in November last year
The Buildings Department approved a total of 21 building plans in November last year. More notable projects include the aforementioned Queen’s Road East project, which involves 46-56 Queen’s Road East, 2-12 Yanton Street, and 1-11 Landau Street, near Taikoo. Real Estate’s Three Pacific Place. The Buildings Department approved the developer to construct a 32-storey commercial building with a total gross floor area of about 214.7 thousand square feet. Except for Swire Properties, 1 to 3 Landau Street, which has already completed the merger and acquisition, the rest of the site is the group’s unified ownership of 2.055 billion yuan in a mandatory auction without rivals at the end of 2017.
Wanshun Industrial Building, No. 7 Liye Street, Kwun Tong (00015), also approved by the Buildings Department in the same month to build a 25-storey (including a 3-storey basement) commercial building with a total floor area of approximately 132,500 square feet The site is undergoing demolition works. However, the Town Planning Board approved in December last year to relax the plot ratio to 14.4 times. A 32-storey commercial building can be constructed with a total floor area of about 159,000 square feet, which means that if Yingxin Holdings successfully completes the replenishment with the Lands Department Land prices and development plans for the land will change.
Residential construction starts 5 years low in first November 2019
The Buildings Department documents revealed that five private residential projects started in November last year, including Vanke Real Estate (Hong Kong) 15 Western Street (104 units) in Western District, which were launched for sale this month, providing a total of 265 units, compared with October last year. The 1,558 units decreased by 83%, which was a 3-month low since last August when only two groups were recorded. Chen Haichao, head of the Real Estate Research Department of Ricardo Court, pointed out that 9218 units started construction in the first 11 months of last year, a 27% drop from the 12,622 units in the same period in 2018, which was the lowest level in the same period in the past 5 years.
As for the number of completions, there were 749 units in November last year, a decrease of 63.9% compared to the 2074 units in October. Zhang Beilei, senior manager of the Real Estate Data and Research Center of Midland Realty, said that a total of 12,923 units were completed in the first 11 months of last year, a three-year low since 12,061 units in the first 11 months of 2016, and the Rating and Valuation Department predicts 2019 Compared with 20,415 completions in the year, only about 63.3% were achieved. Based on this calculation, 7492 units will be completed in December last year, and the completion volume can only reach the standard.