Shanghai Awards Site for $8B Pudong Commercial Complex to SOE Duo for $2.2B

Shanghai’s government has awarded a deal for a RMB 50 billion ($7.9 billion) commercial complex — bigger than New York’s Grand Central Terminal — to a consortium of local state-run firms as the city prepares for yet another commercial hub in Pudong district.

Shanghai Land Group, a developer owned directly by the city government, together with Shentong Metro Group, a municipal government firm which operates the city’s subway system, won a public tender for a 250,000 square metre (2.7 million square foot) plot alongside the city’s inner ring road just two subways stops west of Zhangjiang High Tech Park for RMB 13.8 billion ($2.2 billion), the city announced.

Allocated for office and retail use, the site will yield one million square metres of office space, more than the combined GFA of the Shanghai Tower, Shanghai World Financial Center and Jin Mao Tower in Lujiazui. The retail space is estimated to measure 420,000 square metres (4.5 million square feet), according to local media reports. The total floor area of 1.4 million square metres makes the price for the site just south of Century Park work out to approximately RMB 35,714 ($5,657) per square metre.

Government Firms Win Again Along Shanghai’s Line 2

The Pudong New Area Beicai Z000501 site is located south of Longyang Road station in Pudong, a 25-minute drive from Shanghai’s prime business area Lujiazui. The Longyang Road site will be accessible via four metro lines upon completion, including Line 2, 7 and 16, as well as being connected to the maglev train serving Pudong International Airport. Line 18, which is scheduled to be completed in 2020, will also connect to the complex.

Under the tender requirements, developers of the plot must build eight municipal roads and a public pipeline for no less than RMB 637 million ($101 million). To be fully completed no later than 2026, the project is limited to 200 metres in height.

The retail space comprises two shopping centres located underground and above ground and a shopping street. Above ground retail space takes up 275,000 square metres (3 million square feet) while 140,000 square metres (1.5 million square feet) of space is planned for the underground mall.

The project’s investment amount is estimated to be RMB 50 billion, according to media reports. Just last month Shanghai Land launched China’s first state-backed rental housing brand.

New Pudong Projects to Roll Out Over 2M SQM of Space

The Shanghai Land/Shentong Metro project is set to compete in the city’s eastern district with the Qiantan International Business Zone, with the two new commercial centres promising to add nearly two million square metres of commercial space to Pudong.

Already under development by the Pudong district government-owned Lujiazui group, Qiantan involves a series of foreign joint ventures and wholly-owned projects by the developer responsible for the Shanghai’s famous financial district.

Described as Shanghai’s “second Lujiazui” and master-planned by international design firm Benoy, Qiantan has attracted blue-chip developers from Hong Kong and the US to develop more than 1.5 million square metres of commercial projects along the Huangpu waterfront.

Swire Properties has recently announced a 1,250,000 square foot (116,000 square metre) retail project in the fast-growing area, its second project in the first-tier city. In 2015, Hongkong Land signed an agreement to build a 210,000 square metre mixed-use project in the area south of Lujiazui in Pudong.

Qiantan is also home to US developer Tishman Speyer’s Crystal Plaza mixed-use project, which is putting up a combined 305,000 square metres (3,285,867 square feet) of office, retail and residential space on the site formerly home to Shanghai’s 2010 Expo.

During 2017 Hong Kong-based developer Swire formally opened its HKRI Taikoo Hui Shanghai project, which was co-developed with HKRI. The project on West Nanjing Road includes two grade-A office towers totalling over 170,000 square metres, a 100,000 square metre shopping mall, two luxury hotels and over 400 rooms of serviced apartments.