New buildings taller than 500 metres (1,640 feet) will no
longer be approved, while towers exceeding 250 metres must be strictly limited,
and structures taller than 100 metres must strictly match the scale and the
fire rescue capacity of their locations, according to an order issued late on
Tuesday by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s
top planning agency.
The order, two months after the unexplained wobbling of the 72-storey SEG Plaza in Shenzhen, would halt – at least for the time being – the construction boom that has led to mainland China being home to five of the world’s 10 tallest 500-metre structures, all completed in the past six years.
Still, the ceiling may not have much impact on the commercial property market,
as the most popular floor plates lie somewhere between 180 and 200 metres, said
Knight Frank’s research director Martin Wong. “Companies look for location,
quality and whether their buildings are energy efficient and sustainable, not
merely for heights,” Wong said, adding that developers in mainland China began
to change their strategies and mindsets for sustainability about five years
ago.
China is home to 44 of the world's 100 tallest buildings. Source: The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat |
“The taller the buildings the smaller the floor plate per
floor,” said Wong. “Most commercial buildings are between 180 and 200 metres,
as that height provides the optimal floor plate to attract tenants, especially
those that are involved in new-economy or hi-tech industries, the sectors that
are expanding the fastest right now.”
Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, each city
boasting one of the world’s 10 tallest buildings, also have the highest
commercial vacancy rates in the country, totalling 7.9 million square metres of
empty space in the second quarter, equivalent to 29 blocks of the International
Commerce Centre (ICC), Hong Kong’s tallest building
The Shanghai Tower towering over surrounding skyscrapers in the Lujiazui financial area in the Pudong District of Shanghai on December 28, 2018. Photo: Bloomberg |
The Shanghai Tower, completed in 2015, is China’s tallest
building, standing 632 metres on the eastern banks of the Huangpu river that
cuts through the nation’s commercial hub. With 128 floors topped by the world’s
highest hotel, the 20 billion yuan (US$3.14 billion) building struggled for
years to fill its 576,000 square metres of space (6.2 million square feet), not
including 380,000 square metres on the ground. Ant Group, an affiliate of this
newspaper’s owner Alibaba Group Holding, occupies four floors in the building.
Second on the list is the 115-storey Ping An Financial Center, completed in
2017 in the southern Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen, the home base of
China’s largest insurer.
The Tianjin CTF Financial Centre under construction on April
17 2018. The 530-metre building, which holds joint position with its Guangzhou
sibling as the world’s seventh tallest building, was completed in 2019, the
newest addition to the world’s top 10. Photo: EPA-EFE
In Shenzhen, new-economy enterprises have each been taking up between 10,000 and 100,000 square metres (1.07 million square feet) of office space, according to JLL. At least 20 super skyscrapers are on the drawing board in China, six of them taller than 500 metres, some scheduled for completion as soon as 2022. The tallest among them is the 597-metre Goldin Finance 117 tower in Tianjin, developed by the debt-strapped Goldin Financial Holdings, which received a bailout from Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing last July.
The 128-storey building is due for completion in 2022. China
Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer at one stage, has its
518-metre Evergrande International Financial Centre under construction in the
Anhui provincial capital of Hefei, scheduled for completion in 2025. The
bamboo-shaped building features 128 floors.
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