Six years ago, Kwai Chung might not have been the most obvious location to build more than 1million sqft of grade A office space. But this is exactly what Sun Hung Kai Properties did, and it is now starting to reap the rewards.
'Even going back a few years it was notable that Hong Kong was running out of grade A office space. Today, Hong Kong's CBD [central business district] has just over a 1per cent vacancy,' said Lo King-wai, general manager at Sun Hung Kai's office leasing division.
'When we looked at [the western side of] Kowloon, we saw that it was close to the airport. It is also the site of the Kwai Chung Container Terminal, and well connected in terms of road and rail access. So we saw good potential in putting something up there that the market was looking for.'
Last month, the company officially opened the first phase of the Kowloon Commerce Centre, a 35-storey building with 500,000 sqft of space dedicated to office and restaurant space. And tenants have snapped up 30per cent of the space so far.
Part of the appeal stems from the fact that the project was conceived to be as environmentally friendly as possible.
Sun Hung Kai has a reputation for developing 'green projects', such as Millennium City in Kwun Tong, which opened last year.
'Many companies these days are very concerned about their carbon footprint and impact on the environment as part of their corporate social responsibility directives - especially overseas companies.
