Everything about Festival Walk totally explained
Festival Walk is an upmarket
shopping centre in
Kowloon Tong,
Hong Kong owned by
Swire Pacific. It was the biggest shopping mall in
Hong Kong at its launch in November 1998. Festival Walk was developed jointly by Swire and CITIC Pacific in 1993-1998. In 2006, Swire bought out the 50% stake held by its partner.
Location
Festival Walk is in
Yau Yat Chuen, right adjacent to the
Kowloon Tong Railway Station, which is an interchange station of the
East Rail Line and the
Kwun Tong Line of the
Mass Transit Railway. It is also in the vicinity of
City University of Hong Kong.
Configuration
Festival Walk comprises some one million square feet of retail space: 200 shops, 27 restaurants, an 11 screen
multiplex cinema, an ice rink; of office space. There is also parking accommodation for 850 cars. The developers also installed a water-cooled air-conditioning system in 2002 at a cost of HK$13 million. The developer claims its high energy-efficiency has saved 5 million
KWh each year. Although praised for its spaciousness and its public amenities, Festival Walk's array of escalators were criticised as confusing and unwisely planned in a "Rate your mall" survey in 2007.
Site challenges
Its construction commenced in 1994, and it was completed in 1998. Significant challenges were posed in the formation of the 21,000 m² site due to its terraced land form as well as its narrow land shape. The tunnels for the
Kwun Tong Line of the
MTR run through the full length of the site.
During the construction of the building with 4 basement levels, 460,000 m³ of earth had to be shifted.
Financial transactions
The development was a 50:50 joint venture between Swire and
CITIC Pacific. The partners secured the plot in a Government land auction in 1993 with a HK$2.9 billion bid, and developed it at an estimated cost of $2.2 billion. In January 2006, in Hong Kong's biggest property deal, Swire paid
HK$6.18 billion to buy out its partner's half share. In July 2007, it was announced that Swire Pacific was contemplating listing the property as a
real estate investment trust.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Festival Walk'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://festival_walk.totallyexplained.com">Festival Walk Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
