SUPER Ocean Group announced over the weekend it has acquired a shopping mall in Tongxiang, Zhejiang Province, making its initial foray into the country's newly-emerging commercial-tourism property sector.
"The Tongxiang project, with an estimated total investment exceeding 600 million yuan (US$80 million), is our first-ever commercial-tourism real estate project in the country and also our first venture in Zhejiang," said Tang Xiaodan, general manager of sales at Super Ocean Properties Development Ltd. "We believe its vicinity to Wuzhen, a state-level scenic spot, will help make it an attractive shopping and travel destination in the country's eastern region."
The two-phase shopping complex, which specializes in leather and fur products, is a little more than one hour from Shanghai and 15 minutes from Wuzhen, a well-known watertown. Wuzhen receives five million visitors a year.
The first phase, which opened a year ago with a total gross floor area of 96,000 square meters including more than 400 shops, will be repositioned by introducing more fashionable elements. And the 17,000-square-meter second phase, possibly including a pedestrian mall and high-end international leather products, is expected to get approval early next year and be completed by 2009, company officials said.
Super Ocean is owned by Eddie Ye Lipei, the fifth-richest person on the Chinese mainland according to the 2003 China Rich List.
Super Ocean Group was one of the earliest overseas real estate players in the Chinese mainland to develop offices, apartments, villas, golf courses and commercial properties in Beijing, Shanghai as well as the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu.
In Shanghai, its major projects include the high-end residential project Mandarin City in the Hongqiao area.