Lee Tung Street in Wan Chai will be revamped to feature Hong Kong's first wedding traditions and culture gallery as well as a social enterprise pilot scheme, the Urban Renewal Authority says.

Authority Chairman Barry Cheung said the idea is to bring back wedding-related shops and businesses to bring a local character to Lee Tung Street which is destined for redevelopment into a new community shopping, culture and leisure hub. All wedding card shops formerly operating in Lee Tung Street will be offered priority to lease premises to operate their businesses in the "wedding city".

Wan Chai revamp: Lee Tung Street in Wan Chai will be revamped to create the Wedding City. A "core elements preservation" approach is being explored to preserve the old Wan Chai Market Building.

Wan Chai icon

The Wedding City will be thematically designed and decorated providing 30,000 square feet retail net floor space, more than twice as big as the area of all the former wedding card shops combined.

Corresponding decor, artwork and sculpturing will be applied to part of the open space adjacent to the Wedding City to create a strong ambience.

"We hope Wedding City will become not only an icon of Wan Chai but also a landmark of Hong Kong," Mr Cheung said.

The Wedding City will be located in two adjoining commercial blocks and a row of three preserved pre-war shop-houses on the Queen's Road East side of the project. In addition to wedding card shops, it will cater for a wide range of wedding-related trades and services such as wedding dresses and gowns, flowers, cakes, hair-salons, jewellery, photo studios, limousine rentals, wedding party and banquet organisers, and venue decoration.

Mr Cheung said: "We understand most of the wedding card shops formerly in the project site have relocated themselves. As the redevelopment will not be completed until 2011 we will give them ample notice to consider becoming part of the Wedding City.

"Although it is too early for us to talk about leasing in absolute terms, we will seriously consider offering them competitive lease terms in the initial tenancies. We will inform the operators of details of the leasing arrangements as soon as practicable."

A wedding traditions and culture gallery will be located inside one of the three pre-war Canton veranda-style buildings that will be conserved and fully refurbished.

Pilot scheme

As a pilot scheme about 6,500 square feet of net floor area will be designated for the formation and operation of a social enterprise centre, aiming to preserve and boost social networks in the district. The space will be offered to social enterprise operators at welfare rent with first tenancies of three years.

"Bidding for space will be open to community service groups but we would prefer to see operators who have a really good knowledge of Wan Chai, especially if such operators allow former residents affected by the project to take part in whatever social enterprise activities they propose to implement," Mr Cheung said.

"They may operate businesses which are committed to employing the less skilled people in Wan Chai and to serving the local community. For example, they may run cafeterias, homecare services for the elderly, mobile home cleansing services for the disabled, repair and renovation services, and resale of second-hand goods."

If the pilot scheme is successful the authority will consider setting up similar social enterprise centres in other redevelopment projects where suitable space is available.

Heritage preservation

Mr Cheung said a proposal is being formed to resolve the dilemma of preserving the old Wan Chai Market Building while simultaneously honouring the redevelopment contract its predecessor, the Land Development Corporation, signed with a joint venture developer over a decade ago.

"This is a very difficult situation. Demolition of the market building to make way for redevelopment of a residential tower was approved by the Government and signed with the developer in 1996. It would be most unbecoming to a statutory body like the authority to fail in honouring such a commercial contract. Yet we appreciate the community's concern to preserve this building and we want to respond as positively as circumstances permit," he said.

"After many discussions with the joint venture developer we are now seriously considering the feasibility of taking a 'core elements preservation' approach to save the market."

This approach will make it possible to preserve key elements of the market building in-situ, including the entire exterior and facade, the main interior structural elements and a good portion of the original floors.

Instead of starting at ground level as originally planned the residential tower will now be supported by piles going through the rear part of the market floors and will rise above the rooftop of the preserved market.

Mr Cheung said this is a rare engineering attempt in Hong Kong for the purpose of conservation, although it is not entirely uncommon in reservation-cum-redevelopment projects in some developed countries. 

"To further reinforce the conservation elements we are also exploring whether we can design the exterior in such a way as to match and blend in with the 'fin-like' cantilevers of the market building facade as much as practicable," he said, adding a revised master layout plan may be tabled to Town Planning Board in early 2008.