Towering heights for the Bund

Buildings of the Bund Finance Center under construction. The commercial complex will host a wide range of properties including office buildings, shopping areas, hotels and entertainment facilities. [Provided to China Daily]

Commercial complex gets record presale bid of 350,000 yuan per square meter

Bund Finance Center, a commercial complex project in the Bund area of Shanghai, has got a record presale price of 350,000 yuan ($56,960) per square meter, a company official said on Friday

Wu Yang, executive officer of the project, said the company had to disclose the presale price due to the regulatory requirements for presale projects and added that the record price would give a major lift to other commercial realty projects in the city.

"The quoted price does not necessarily mean that the project will be sold for the same price. In fact, the project is likely to be leased rather than sold," said Wu.

Market sources said rentals for the project are expected to be higher than the average for similar commercial complexes in the city due to the higher presale price quotes.

BFC offered a combined space of 96,200 sq m of 57 units at the presale with a minimum price of 100,000 yuan per sq m. Total available space in the twin tower complex has been estimated at 420,000 sq m.

The highest presale price quoted in Shanghai for commercial complex before the BFC was some 300,000 yuan per sq m for a project on the Pudong riverbank, Shanghai's financial services hub.

Wu said some 30 percent of the 190,000 sq m office building areas of the project had already been contracted to tenants by mid-October.

Estimated rental of the complex may be up to 20 yuan per day per sq m based on the quoted presale price, according to data provided by Dooioo, a Shanghai-based realty services provider.

Average rental for prime office buildings in Shanghai by the end of the third quarter of this year was about 8.5 yuan per sq m per day, according to data from Savills, a global property services provider.

BFC will host a wide range of properties including office buildings, shopping areas, hotels and entertainment facilities, according to the project document.

The project has been a hot button issue in the realty sector in Shanghai as ownership of the land parcel on which the project would be developed has been disputed for years.

In 2010, the site was auctioned for 9.22 billion yuan to Shanghai Zendai Property Co Ltd, whichlater sold it to another project company for 9.57 billion yuan.

In 2012, Shanghai-based Fosun International Ltd, which owns 50 percent of the project company, took its fellow stakeholders in the project company to court in a dispute over whether Fosun had the right to be the first to purchase its partners' stakes in the project.

So far, open sources show that Fosun owns 50 percent of the shares of the project, and ownership of the other 50 percent have not been released, according to a report in China Securities Journal on Friday.

The complex will be opened in 2016, according to Wu.