Millennium City, a cluster of newer office buildings developed by
Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. (16), has attracted the back offices of banks such as Standard Chartered Plc and Bank of East Asia Ltd. to East Kowloon. Manulife Financial Corp. last year moved its Hong Kong headquarters to the district, while PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP has also relocated part of its operations there.
“We can really have a Canary Wharf here if the government gets its act together,” said
John Davies, a Hong Kong-based executive director at CB Richard Ellis.
After spending 10 years in public discussion and consultation, the government in 2007 came up with an outline for the site’s redevelopment. The current plan includes building more than 33,000 units of public and private housing, 20 million square feet of office, retail and hotel spaces, cruise terminals and a stadium.
The plan for the development of Kai Tak “had evolved several times to meet changing community aspirations” before it was approved, the government’s Civil Engineering and Development Department, which is in charge of the development of Kai Tak, said in an e-mail reply to Bloomberg questions.
Removing Stigma
Central’s surging costs have already prompted defections. In 2007, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG moved their entire operations in the city across the harbor to the
International Commerce Centre in West Kowloon, a reclaimed area that’s a five-minute train ride from Central.
Property prices on the Kowloon Peninsula, north of Victoria Harbour, have historically been below those of
Hong Kong Island, home to the city’s financial district and its most expensive residential area. Before the completion of ICC, few banks would have considered setting up front offices in Kowloon, said Davies.
The move to West Kowloon “has removed the negative stigma of Kowloon,” he said. “To attract the same caliber of clients to East Kowloon, the infrastructure in that area needs to be improved.”
