Cheung Kong Center

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cheung Kong Center
Information
Location 2 Queen's Road, Central, Hong Kong
Status completed
Opening 1999
Use Office tower
Roof 283 meters
Floor count 62
Floor area 1.26 million sq ft
Companies
Architect Leo A. Daly, Cesar Pelli
Owner Cheung Kong Holdings

Cheung Kong Center (traditional Chinese: 長江集團中心) is a skyscraper in Central Hong Kong designed by Cesar Pelli. It stands between the HSBC Hong Kong headquarters building and the Bank of China Tower, is 62 storeys tall with height of 283 m (927 feet), and houses several banking firms. As is common in Hong Kong, colored lights on the sides of the building illuminate at night in intricate light shows.

The building sits on the combined sites of the former Hong Kong Hilton Hotel, which was demolished in 1995/6, and Beaconsfield House, sold by the Government in 1996. The building has a gross floor area of 1,260,000-square-foot (117,100 m²).

The building is the headquarters of Cheung Kong Holdings. The top floor is used by Cheung Kong's' Chairman, Li Ka Shing, as his residence.[1] Li is often seen escorted and takes a freight elevator operated in attendant mode so that it does not stop on any other floor.[citation needed]

It is one of many skyscrapers and giant structures worldwide that have been climbed by Alain Robert, the Frenchman known as "Spiderman".

Contents

[edit] Development and land grab

The Bank of China Tower (left) and the Cheung Kong Center (right)
The Bank of China Tower (left) and the Cheung Kong Center (right)

The 26-storey Hilton Hotel building was owned by Hutchison Whampoa, who licensed Hilton Hotels Group to operate it for 50 years.[2] In January 1994, with about 20 years of the management contract to run, Hutchison announced the buyout of the unexpired term for US$125 million.

Cheung Kong had originally planned to redevelop the Hilton site into a high-rise office-retail complex, yielding a gross floor area of about 600,000-square-foot (55,700 m²).[3] CKH was keen to enlarge the redevelopment project by merging the hotel site with a neighbouring site to gain a greater efficiency, and commenced private talks with the Government in May 1993 with a view to acquiring the adjacent 33,700-square-foot (3,100 m²) Government car park site, and the 18,300-square-foot (1,700 m²) Beaconsfield House site. Talks were finalised in August 1995.[3]

Executive Council has approved the sale of the sites in April, 1995, for a land premium in excess of HK$5.5 billion.[4]

In September 1995, the Planning authorities passed the proposals for the 9,900 m² combined site.[5] With a plot ratio of 15, 1.6 million sq ft building (including the 1000-space car park) could be built. The developer agreed with the planners that most of the building would actually be weighted on the Hilton site; much of the car park and Beaconsfield house area would be given over to park and public amenities.[5]

[edit] Building design

The building was designed by world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli and Leo A. Daly, and is considered as much a work of art as an efficient working environment.[6] A feng shui master was consulted on ways to absorb the negative energy coming from the Bank of China's "cleaver".[1]

Its external walls are uniform glass panels each measuring 2.4 m x 2.1 m, giving occupants a 360-degree panoramic view over the entire city. The same panels are impregnated with an array of optical fibre which can be illuminated at night to display different messages according to the season.

Its large floor plates range from 20,000 sq ft to 22,000 sq ft. Tenants can customise an entire office plan at very little expense, as its floor plan are without columns. Offices are all designed with the advanced raised floor system through which air-conditioning and an advanced fibre-optic network accessible to all tenants is ducted.[6]

It boasts the region's fastest state of the art elevators, made by Mitsubishi, maxing out at 9 metres per second. Each elevator features giant plasma displays at the top of each cabin, showing Bloomberg TV.

[edit] Tenants

Tenants of the building include ABN AMRO, Bloomberg, CIBC World Markets, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Lovells, McKinsey & Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers and Simmons & Simmons.

Goldman Sachs (Asia) is reported to have signed a 12-year lease on eight-and-a-half office floors, becoming the leading tenant. Hutchison is believed to have offered up to two- and-a-half years rent-free period.[6]

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Cheung Kong Centre, Glass steel and stone
  2. ^ Robert O'Halloran, The Hong Kong Hilton taken from Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Administration Quarterly, August 1 1997
  3. ^ a b Winnie Wu, Agreement over Hilton premiums finalised in near term, The Standard, August 2, 1995
  4. ^ Karen Chan, Exco agrees to property firm's redevelopment plans for Beaconsfield House Cheung Kong gets go-ahead, The Standard, April 28, 1995
  5. ^ a b Joshua Fellman, Development plan for Hilton site passed,The Standard, September 16, 1995
  6. ^ a b c Karen Chan, Office rents crumble at ritzy Central towers, The Standard, June 29, 1999

[edit] External links

Coordinates: 22°16′46″N, 114°09′37″E

 This Hong Kong-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Mei Wah Building, 172-176, Johnston Road, Wan Chai  This article about a Hong Kong building or structure is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.