Milan redevelopment boom
Builders in Milan are taking advantage of obsolete manufacturing space to make room for new residential and office properties. Long known as an industrial capital, Italy’s second-largest city has made the transition to a service economy and is shifting its land use accordingly.
The Italian research institute Scenari Immobiliari reported last year that the city has 2.4 square miles of industrial land, much of which is no longer used. The same institute reported an estimated 150 urban redevelopment projects in Milan either at the design stage or in construction, and an estimated $20 to $27 billion currently invested in these projects.
The largest redevelopment project planned for Milan is called Santa Giulia; it involves turning 3.6 million square feet of unused industrial land into residential property and a convention center with an 81-acre park.
Construction will begin soon on the Porta Nuova, a project with a 950,000-square-foot footprint surrounding the city’s major train station, Garibaldi Station. When completed in 2012, Porta Nuova will include 1.2 million square feet of office, residential and commercial space, as well as a park. About $2.8 billion of the $3.5 billion invested in the project is from private sources, an unusually high proportion for a project of its size.
Bangkok threatened by housing glut
A condominium building boom in Bangkok may turn into a housing glut, and the country’s current political instability is also hurting home sales.
There are 27,000 new condominium units expected to be completed by 2009, according to a report by the property brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle. Meanwhile, sales have been falling. Total sales of incomplete projects dropped from around 7,000 units in the first half of 2006 to 2,400 in the second; the last quarter of the year also saw a dip in average property value.
High-end condominiums are already drawing less interest. The luxury condominium agency Hamptons Property reports that inquiries from prospective buyers dropped 40 percent in the last six months. Yet property analysts predict that in the long run the oversupply will hurt the lower end of the housing market the hardest.
Another factor hurting the housing market is that many prospective buyers are expatriates. Thailand is recovering from a coup in September and the government is making it harder for foreigners to settle there or get work permits and long-stay visas. The government plans to tighten legal loopholes that allow foreigners to run Thai-based companies and own land.
Bangkok’s homes already sell for much less on average than other Asian cities’: $185 per square foot compared to Hong Kong’s $1,600 per square foot.
China to construct world’s first eco-city
Construction will soon begin on Dongtan, a development on an island near Shanghai that its planners call the world’s first fully sustainable, carbon-neutral city. The $1.3 billion project will house 500,000 people and cover an area the size of Manhattan. The project is designed by London-based engineering firm Arup and developed by the public-private company Shanghai Industrial Investment. Arup is also developing four other eco-cities in China, where the pace of development has created widespread environmental trouble.
The first phase of Dongtan will be completed by 2010. It will include 15,000 residential units in four- to eight-story buildings surrounding a network of canals through Chongming Island, north of the city. Cars will be banned from the development; it will be connected to Shanghai by a 15.6-mile bridge and a tunnel. The city’s energy will be derived from the burning of rice husks, an array of solar panels and a wind farm on the city’s outskirts. Sixty-five percent of Chongming Island will be dedicated to farms and parks.