Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin agreed yesterday to proceed with an urban renewal project that is expected to bring forth a new Taipei financial center in the capital city.
The project covers an area of 12.64 hectares adjacent to the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Park -- also known as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park.
The area, dubbed as Huaguang community, is surrounded by Hangzhou South Road, Jinhua Street, Jinshan South Road, and Xinyi Road.
The mostly residential area will be divided into three major districts: a financial district, a digital content district, and a commercial district.
Half of the whole area, about 5.98 hectares, on the southern side will be developed into a financial district.
The zone will accommodate the headquarters of the Financial Supervisory Commission, the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the over-the-counter stock trading center, the Taiwan Futures Exchange, other government financial entities like the postal banking system and deposits insurance firm, and the government-owned Bank of Taiwan, which is undergoing a transformation to expand into a gigantic financial holding corporation by integrating three other state-run financial institutions.
A tract of about 3.4 hectares, owned by Chunghwa Telecom, will be turned into a digital content district.
The remaining section of 1.7 hectares will become a commercial district with 1.1 hectares earmarked for an international tourist standard hotel.
The five-star hotel is expected to become a new landmark in Taipei. It will be built with the BOT (build-operate-transfer) format by selected developer and investors.
The Taipei City Government had long planned several major urban renewal projects in the city, including the Huaguang community, before the central government showed interest in helping accelerating the urban development projects in Taiwan.
Mayor Hau decided to let the central government handle the development project on several conditions, including arranging new places for residents who have to move to make room for the project and giving financial feedback to the city government.
The Huaguang community has now become one of the four major urban renewal projects designated by the Cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) to serve as models for other old communities on the island.
One of the other three projects selected by the CEPD is also located in Taipei. It is the area in Nangang District that accommodates the joint services of the traditional Taiwan railway system, Taipei's mass rapid transit system, and the high-speed rail system.
The third project is the development of the wharf zone adjacent to the railway station in the northern harbor city of Keelung.
The fourth project involves the wharf zone in the southern harbor city of Kaohsiung.
According to the CEPD plan, rezoning of the designated areas should be completed before soliciting investors and making arrangement for the moving of the current residents.
The development of the financial district, which is close to both the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of China, is also expected to attract private enterprises like financial and securities firms to the zone.
The Huaguang community project is rated by real estate developers as the one with the greatest commercial development potential among the four projects.
Real estate prices around the Huaguang community have increased sharply with further rises on the horizon.
But the project, located right in the heart of the metropolis, is also expect to pose a challenge to the Taipei 101 financial center in the Xinyi District on the eastern side of the city.
Before all these come a reality, the government will have to make arrangements for around 800 households in the community. They include mainly 300 dorms and another 300 families of the employees of the Ministry of Justice plus around 200 squatters who have built their houses in the area decades ago without legal permission.
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