Old Beijing neighborhoods disappearing

Xie Chen-sheng, the honorary president of the government-affiliated Chinese Cultural Relics Association, defends the project. He notes that he helped persuade Chongwen officials to drop their original plan for a bright-hued modern look and instead rebuild the area in traditional style.

The Qianmen project will preserve about 3 percent of the 360,000 square meter development area, according to SOHO documents filed for its Hong Kong stock exchange listing last year. The success of the listing hinged in large part on the project.

Plans call for saving 11 historic buildings, but it’s unclear which buildings will remain. Many of the one-story homes built around courtyards are being gutted. Some will be rebuilt with modern bathrooms; others will give way to new buildings that may retain traditional touches. Preservationists say the plans by Chongwen district officials are sanitizing the Qianmen neighborhood and destroying its spirit.

The district government made the narrowest interpretation of the 2002 preservation agreement, cherry-picking a few places for preservation and developing the rest, said He Shuzhong, the founder of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, an activist group.

“Many officials really don’t believe in preserving old Beijing. They lack an understanding of it, they think it is underdeveloped,” he said.

Chongwen officials declined comment. Wang Chunlei, a spokeswoman for developer SOHO, said only that conservation was the responsibility of the district government.

Qianmen’s main shopping street, along which Olympic marathon runners will pass, is being remade into an 845-meter-long pedestrian way with bright gold street lights in the shape of birdcages. Rolex, Prada, Starbucks, Nike, Adidas and Apple computer are among the 20 foreign brand names that will take retail space, according to Chinese media reports.

The brands are keen to open before the Aug. 8-24 Olympics, said Benjamin Christensen, head of research at property agency Jones Lang LaSalle, which is involved in the project.

Thirteen businesses that had operated in the area for centuries will be allowed to return to the area. They include a famous Peking duck restaurant, a silk clothing store and a Muslim food shop that cooked meat for an 18th century Qing Dynasty emperor.

The government said residents could stay if they paid for the cost of refurbishing, but that offer was not made until late last year — after many had already moved — and few have taken it up. Former residents said they received 8,020 yuan (about US$1,000) per square meter — about a fifth of what developers expect to charge for rebuilt old-style courtyard homes. Still, the money was enough for most of the displaced to move to Beijing’s outlying areas where housing is cheaper.

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