CBRE: $1.03b Hung Shui Kiu bid masks wider tech, site-formation costs

The consortium estimates $16.8b investment across homes, site works, and tech facilities. 

The headline price of the $1.03b winning bid for the Hung Shui Kiu pilot area may understate the project’s overall development cost given its Enterprise and Technology (E&T) and site-formation obligations, according to CBRE.

“The winning bidder is effectively paying for much more than a residential development,” said Hannah Jeong, executive director and head of Valuation & Advisory Services at CBRE Hong Kong.

Jeong said the bid translates to $566 per square foot of residential gross floor area (GFA), implying a residential land value substantially below that of other sites currently available in the market.

“However, focusing solely on the residential land value misses the bigger picture,” she added.

HSK New Development Limited won the nearly 11-hectare Northern Metropolis project after scoring higher than the other bidder on both its premium and non-premium proposals.

Its six shareholders are subsidiaries of China Overseas Land and Investment Limited, China Merchants Land Limited, China Resources Land Limited, China Tourism Group Corporation Limited, JD.com, Inc. and Sino Land Company Limited.

The consortium estimates the entire project will involve about $16.8b in investment and create more than 6,000 jobs.

Jeong said profits from the residential component are expected to help fund the wider technology development and site-formation works.

In addition to forming and developing three residential sites capable of providing about 3,000 flats, the consortium must undertake site-formation works and develop a smart modern logistics centre on an Enterprise and Technology Park (E&TP) site.

The logistics centre, with permissible GFA of up to 50,950 square metres, will have JD.com as its leading enterprise.

Operations covering at least 15,300 square metres of GFA are expected to begin within 55 months, ahead of the tender’s minimum requirement of 96 months.

The government weighted the tender’s non-premium proposal at 70%, whilst the premium proposal accounted for 30%.

Non-premium criteria included the introduction of strategic industries and leading enterprises, development speed, investment scale and job creation.

Only two bids were submitted for the project, which opened for tender on 30 December 2025 and closed on 3 July 2026.