No_9_September_1968 — Page 11

HOTEL PROJECTS ON THE DRAWING BOARD

Punder

now

ROJECTS being planned or

construction in Hong Kong will boost the number of hotel available from the present 6,000 to well past the 8,000 mark by 1971.

rooms

Largest of these schemes showing physical evidence is the 1,000 room, 800-unit Hong Kong Hotel. Sited at the landward end of the Ocean Ter- minal, Kowloon, it is almost structur- ally complete and is due to be open- ed in July next year.

The hotel will be owned and oper- ated by Harbour Centre Ltd., a con- sortium of local companies which in- cludes: Hong Kong Land Investment & Agency Co. Ltd., The Hong Kong & Kowloon Wharf and Godown Co. Ltd., Metropolitan Investors Ltd., and Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels Ltd.

Like all large new hotels in S.E. Asia, it devotes a great deal of space on its lower floors to concessionaire shops. Arcades on the first, second and third floors will contain 120 shops, each of about 400 sq. ft.

These will link up with the shopping galleries of the Ocean Terminal and the arcades of Star House, an adjacent multi-storey complex recent- ly purchased by Hong Kong Land Investment. There will be 300,000

sq. ft. of shops in the three buildings. At ground level will be a supermar- ket or department store and a cinema rising through to the fifth floor on the north side of the building. Seating 1,800 it will be the second largest theatre in Hong Kong.

Huge lobby

Also at ground level will be an en- ormous lobby measuring 176 ft. x 68 ft. The hotel is of course designed to cater for large groups of tourists and. with the facilities it offers local re- sidents, it is estimated there might be 300 to 400 people in the lobby at any time. A railway station environment will however be avoided by the intro- duction of such features as level changes, unusual ceilings, group seating, plants, service shops, a coffee shop seating 200 and a bar for 170. Throughout the hotel an atmosphere of colour and informality is aimed at.

Offices and a service area will oc- cupy the fourth and fifth floors, while the sixth floor or deck level will com- prise a health centre- clinics, sauna baths, beauty salons, etc. a grill room, private dining rooms, a garden lounge facing the open swimming open swimming pool and a lounge restaurant to seat

300 overlooking the harbour and within easy distance of the carpark top deck of the Ocean Terminal.

Public rooms absorb seven floors, or more than half of volume of the building.

On the guest room floors, seventh to 17th, 27 different types of accom- modation will be offered, ranging from small one-bed single rooms a rarity in modern hotels to twin- bed suites.

The estimated cost of the Hong Kong Hotel, including land, is about HK$70 million. Architects for the scheme are Eric Cumine Associates.

The same architects are finalising plans for a 550-room hotel at Chater Road, Central Hong Kong. Known as Fu Centre, the building was origin- ally planned as a 32-storey commer- cial block. Foundations and basement are already complete and once the go- ahead is given by the developers and Government, the building could be ready in two years. It will include two conference halls of 7,000 sq. ft. each.

Another scheme on which several pronouncements have been made but as yet no plans submitted for approv- al is the 600-room hotel scheduled for a Nathan Road site, Kowloon, by

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Hong Kong Hotel

Far East BUILDER, September 1968.

Singapore Hilton

15