news review
Nathan Road site sold for HK$130 m.
A price of $2,661 per square foot was paid for a Kowloon site at a Government public auction last month - the highest price ever recorded for a virgin site in Hong Kong.
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Interest in the site at the junction of Nathan Road and Salisbury Road - was such that the Crown Lands and Survey Office conducted the auction in the concert hall of the City Hall. Bidding passed the upset price of HK$25 million almost immediately and later rose in increments of HK$2 and HK$3 million.
The final bidding was from two local interests and one American, the accepted bid at HK$105
Hotel site Nathan Road HK$2,661 per sq. ft.
million above the upset price being from Mr. Ewell Pope, chairman of Crow Pope International Ltd., of Dallas, Texas.
Mr. Pope's group will build a 17-storey hotel of about 1,000 bedrooms on the site. It must pay Government 10 per cent of the realised price within a month of the auction, five per cent on each of the first two anniversaries of the sale, and ten per cent on each of the next eight anniver- sary dates.
When the site was offered for sale almost a year ago, there were no bidders.
HK firm to make prestressed units
A new joint venture, Hongstress Ltd., has set up a prestressing casting yard at Kwai Chung in the New Territories with ten 280-ft. long line beds capable of stressing up to 350 tons a bed. The
plant also includes a fully-equipped concrete test- ing laboratory.
The company plans to offer specialist services in the manufacture and erection of prestressed, precast structural products and is starting with a HK$2.5 million contract to supply and erect com- ponents for the new 12-storey Textile Alliance factory.
These components include 50ft. long precast, prestressed beams, precast floor slabs and precast columns. The building, consisting of two side wind structures used also as the service cores and three 50 ft. spans by seven 24 ft. bents for the actual factory, is believed to be the first in Hong Kong to use these construction units. Cost of the building is estimated at HK$1.20 per cu.ft.
Partners in the new manufacturing venture are a group of industrialists, Richard Lee, Ronald Zau and Linus Suen, together with Gammon (HK) Ltd. and Jardine Engineering Corp.
Ohbayashi-Gumi expected to win Thai project
Ohbayashi-Gumi, Ltd., of Japan, has submitted the lowest bid to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand for the construction and supply of electrical equipment for the Nam Phrom hydro-electric project.
For the project, an embankment-type dam will be constructed on the Nam Phrom River in north- east Thailand about 130km. west of Khon Kaen city, which is a tributary of the Lam Chi River flowing into the Mekong River.
The dam, about 73 metres high, will create a reservoir with an effective storage capacity of ap- proximately 140,000,000 cubic metres of water and provide for annual regulation of flow including release of water in dry seasons. A water flow of 13.4m3/sec (maximum) will be diverted from Nam Phrom River through a headrace tunnel and pen- stock to a 40,000 kW power plant to be construc- ted on the left bank of a tributary of the Nam Su River.
Electric power generated at the plant will be transmitted to substations at Chum Phae, Khon Kaen through a 115 kV transmission line with a total length of 135 km. The power system will be connected with the systems of the Nam Pung and the Nam Pong projects already under operation in the northeast area.
Town planning bill amended
The work of the Hong Kong town planning board will be simplified and speeded up by new amendments made public last month.
The amendments will not alter the present pro- visions by which the Board must publicity exhibit its draft plans, and members of the public will have the right to submit written objections.
One clause amends a section to enable the Board to make provision in its draft plans for areas to be zoned for undetermined uses. At pre-
Far East BUILDER, December 1969
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