CK Asset’s Cheung Kong Center II picked up a relocating tenant in October
Grade A office rents in Hong Kong’s prime Central district edged up 0.1 percent in October from September levels, marking the first monthly increase since May 2022, according to JLL.
Overall monthly rents remained broadly flat last month at an average of HK$46.20 ($5.94) per square foot, with divergent trends observed across and within submarkets, the consultancy said. Kowloon commercial hub Tsim Sha Tsui also recorded a modest rebound of 0.1 percent.
Grade A tenants citywide took up 293,300 square feet (27,248 square metres) more office space than they gave back in October, driven by ongoing consolidation and a flight-to-quality trend, JLL said in its monthly Market Dynamics report.
“Occupancy in Central’s premium Grade A offices is trending up as tenant expansion and flight to quality gathers pace,” said Alex Barnes, managing director and head of office leasing advisory at JLL Hong Kong. “This supported rental stability and prompted a modest uptick over the month.”
Mixed Vacancy Snapshot
The office vacancy rate in Hong Kong continued its gradual decline in October, reaching 13.1 percent, according to JLL.
Alex Barnes, managing director and head of office leasing advisory at JLL Hong Kong
Improvements were seen in Wan Chai/Causeway Bay, where vacancy fell 1.5 points from September to 10.5 percent, and in Tsim Sha Tsui, where the rate dipped 0.2 points to 7.5 percent.
The vacancy rate in Central, however, rose 0.5 points to 11.5 percent as space previously occupied by tenants that relocated within the submarket became available, the report said.
In October’s most notable leasing deal tracked by JLL, fertiliser giant Migao Group Holdings signed up for 10,201 square feet of gross floor area at CK Asset’s Cheung Kong Center II in Central, relocating from COFCO Tower in Causeway Bay.
Jardines Megadeals
Last month also saw Hong Kong’s largest office property transaction since 2021, per JLL data, as Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and its Ant financial affiliate agreed to buy the top 13 floors of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s One Causeway Bay commercial tower for $925 million.
The mainland companies contracted to acquire levels 21-35 of the building as their headquarters in Hong Kong, as well as the building’s rooftop signage and 50 parking spaces, confirming Mingtiandi’s reporting from September that the hospitality unit of Jardine Matheson had held talks on a potential deal with Alibaba.
The deal placed Jardines units as sellers in Hong Kong’s two biggest office transactions of 2025, after Hongkong Land sold a set of floors in the Exchange Square complex in Central for HK$6.3 million during April.
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