1. Last effort to keep pier close to its current site
MICHAEL NG, The Standard, 2 May 2007
The railway operator yesterday announced that it had received bids from Cheung Kong (Holdings) and Sun Hung Kai Properties, despite last month inviting 13 developers to make offers for the project.
Sino Land 's associate director Ringo Chan Wing-kwong yesterday said that the company had submitted a bid but KCRC chief executive James Blake said later that it was a fake one.
Bids are placed in a box in an area viewable to the public and there has long been speculation that developers occasionally have submitted unwinnable, or non-offers to talk up the property market.
Surveyor Albert So Chun-hin said the worse than expected response was due to the investment cost being more than HK$5 billion, a level only major developers could afford.
"The land premium of HK$2,909 per square foot imposed by the government is high. It kept many developers away," he said.
The Lands Department has imposed a land premium levy of HK$3.54 billion for the project.
Knight Frank executive director Alnwick Chan Chi-hing said the plentiful supply in Tsuen Wan was another reason for the response.
"Many developers are more interested in the three residential sites to be offered in the land auction next month. A site located on the West Kowloon waterfront has become the target," he said.
Sino Land has already launched the 1,446-unit Vision City in Tsuen Wan at an average price of more than HK$5,000 per square foot. Property agents said the project had about 700 unsold units. Sino Land owns another residential site in Tseun Wan.
Victor Lui Ting, executive director of Sun Hung Kai Real Estate Agency, said that the company submitted the bid as the residential demand in Tsuen Wan was strong.
The KCRC project is a 258,800 square feet waterfront site next to Waterside Plaza . It can house up to seven 44 to 49-storey residential blocks with a floor area of 1.2 million square feet. It is the first phase of the Tsuen Wan West Station mixed development with a possible 1,776 units.
AMBROSE LEUNG, CHLOE LAI, SCMP, 2 May 2007
Restoring Lui Seng Chun, one of the city's oldest surviving Chinese tenement houses, would cost HK$16 million to comply with building safety standards, Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho Chi-ping said.
Dr Ho said the government had already spent "millions" on the 75-year-old, four-storey tenement building in Mong Kok "to prevent it from falling apart ... We have to spend [a further] HK$16 million if we want to restore Lui Seng Chung to make it comply with all the safety laws.
"Our engineers have told us it can only take a dozen people on each floor, otherwise it will be unsafe. The stairs are 45 degrees, and old women will definitely fall down if they walk up."
Dr Ho said the government would consult the public as to whether the city needed a different set of safety standards for heritage buildings.
The structure was built in 1931 by Lui Leung, co-founder of Kowloon Motor Bus. The ground floor housed his Chinese medicine shop, which sold remedies for bone and muscular ailments, while he and his family lived on the upper floors. His descendants continued to live there until the 1980s.
The Lui family donated the building to the government in October 2003, after it had stood vacant for 20 years. The Home Affairs Bureau promised it would pay for the restoration, but so far there have been no definite plans.
A consultant's report exploring new uses for the building was completed this year, but has not been released.
The Antiquities and Monuments Office says the building is the only one left in Hong Kong with its distinctive shape. Architect W.H. Bourne blended eastern and western styles in its design.
