Big changes coming to Hong Kong’s Central office district, says JLL
Growing interest by mainland Chinese banks and securities firms in prime Central office space likely to push up rents, while new projects set to change face of the property scene
Hong Kong’s Central district will begin to lose tenants and drop rents as the city’s property market goes through a radical shift in coming years, according to a local expert.
JLL’s head of Agency Leasing Ben Dickinson said with vacancy rates in Central low and rents expanding off the back of mainland Chinese companies “warping” the market, a new wave of property in 2017 and 2018 will shake up Hong Kong’s property scene.
“I think that the changes I’ve seen in my first 15 years in Hong Kong will be completely dwarfed by the changes I see in the next five to 10 years,” he said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
Hong Kong’s Central district has traditionally been a influential and attractive office location for big multinational companies and, in recent times, Chinese companies making their first moves internationally.
But Dickinson said it was important for the continued growth of Hong Kong for new, premium office space to be found as soon as possible.
“Companies have nowhere else to go unless developers are prepared to develop some of the older buildings [in Central]... they’re not going to go west to Sheung Wan, and Admiralty’s kind of done in a sense,” he said.
