Super luxury apartments planned for Discovery Bay

Today's SCMP reports that property developer HKR International plans to build six "super-deluxe" houses ranging in size from 6,000 to 8,000 square feet on Discovery Bay.

"Each house will enjoy spectacular sea views and the project will be located next to the Discovery Bay Golf Club," said Chan Chi-ming, the head of the Hong Kong business unit at HKR, the developer of Discovery Bay.

Agents said the houses planned by HKR could fetch more than HK$150 million each (which by the way makes our most expensive apartments on Park Island look very cheap by comparison!). "Due to their scarcity, they will be sought-after by the rich and famous.".

There are 17 houses on Discovery Bay, each of them 5,168 sq ft, with gardens ranging from 6,000 to 9,000 sq ft. One of the houses on Seabee Lane is on the market for HK$120 million.

Negotiations with the government over the land premium payable for the proposed project, which will be the 16th phase of its developments at Discovery Bay, were at an "advanced stage". The development calls for a total built area of 185,000 sq ft.

Initial responses from all target markets, both in Hong Kong and overseas, had been very positive, said the company in an e-mailed reply.

My feeling on this is that this is a positive development which bodes well for those hoping on similar developments for Park Island. Hong Kong continues to attract very wealthy and high paid individuals, who have a strong demand for a higher quality of living than what many Hong Kong locals have become accustomed to in the past, and in many ways Discovery Bay acts like a model for Park Island (Park Island having been conceived and developed after DB was built). I think Park Island is also eventually going to have high-end luxury apartments built on the undeveloped part of the Island, perhaps by a developer other than Sun Hung Kai.

We have already seen the small initial trickle of expats moving to Park Island 5 years become a much larger stream of expats arriving now, but what is interesting is that these were typically younger, professional expats, either singles, couples, couples expecting kids, or couples with young kids. Discovery Bay was where older (and often richer) expats went, and perhaps those on true "expat packages". What I think the next trend for Park Island will be is that the older and better paid expats that traditionally only considered Discovery Bay, will start increasingly to consider and move to Park Island, if not for the lower prices, than the fact that its actually a much better place to live than DB, with cooler and more diverse and interesting people living there, along with a much stronger sense of community among expats living on the island, not to mention better facilities.

Now I am not sure that everyone will be happy about my predicted change in demographics for Park Island, as this trend will surely drive rental prices up, but owners on Park Island will likely be happy to see the value of their properties go up as a consequence, and there might also be some benefits in this trend leading to more and better restaurants, shopping, services etc on Ma Wan, not to mention the eventual move towards allowing car access to Ma Wan for residents.

.