Centaline Launches Hong Kong Student Housing Platform Led by Kowloon Hotel Conversion

Centaline Group has established a student housing operating platform in Hong Kong, as the local property agency seeks to capitalize on rising demand for accommodation from mainland Chinese students.

Branded CampusOne Communities, the platform aims to assist asset owners in transforming residential, office and industrial properties, as well as development sites, into housing for non-local students,, which it would then operate on their behalf, Centaline said in a release this past week. 

Centaline OpCo Ltd, a subsidiary of Centaline Group’s property investment arm, will operate the student housing platform, with the group planning to open its first project by August in a Tsim Sha Tsui hotel it acquired last year.

“Education is a top priority for parents, who pay special attention to all matters related to their children’s academic pursuits…As an educational hub in Asia, Hong Kong is expected to see a continuous increase in the number of students coming to study, further driving accommodation demand and energizing the rental market,” said Shih Wing-ching, founder and chairman of Centaline Group.

Hotel Conversion as Inaugural Project

Centaline is establishing the student housing platform about 11 months after announcing a plan to invest in 2,000 student beds in the city over the next two to three years. On the heels of that announcement, Centaline’s investment division in July acquired a 63-key hotel for conversion into student housing. 

Having acquired the Popway Hotel at 117 Chatham Road South in Tsim Sha Tsui for HK$180 million, Centaline is said to have invested an additional HK$20 million to convert the three-star hotel into its first CampusOne Communities project, which will yield 118 beds.

Now dubbed One Pace 117 the project is within a five-minute walk of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and is a 10-minute from both the Tsim Sha Tsui and Jordan MTR stations.

“CampusOne Communities will assist property owners in assessing the feasibility of converting hotels, entire residential buildings, office buildings, industrial buildings, and even land plots into student housing. Transformations involving hotels and residential properties are relatively straightforward and quick, aligning well with current market needs,” said Kavis Ip, chief executive of Centaline Investment.

Student Influx

Mainland Chinese enrollments at Hong Kong universities has ramped up after the city’s chief executive John Lee in 2023 doubled the admission quota for non-local students, including mainlanders, from 20 percent to 40 percent.

The number of full time mainland Chinese students studying in Hong Kong rose 18 percent year-on-year to 21,054 for the 2024-2025 academic year, according to statistics from Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee, which allocates funding to the city’s eight major public universities.

Centaline estimates there will be 67,800 non-local students in the city by the 2027-2028 academic year, among whom about 50,000 will need off-campus accommodation, with the company forecasting HK$75 billion to HK$100 billion in student housing investment in the city over the next five years.

The property firm has invested in student housing in the US and UK since 2016, and continues to expand its commitments with Centaline last announcing its $25 million of acquisition of a 232-bed student housing project near the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, Arkansas.