The Taipei City Government signed a contract with the Farglory Group (遠雄企業團) yesterday to build a dome complex on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis by 2010.
Farglory plans to invest more than NT$23 billion (US$695.9 million) to erect a 130,000 ping (429,000m2) complex in the site of the historic Sungshan Tobacco Factory (
Chao said the construction project would create between 7,000 and 8,000 jobs.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
He also said that he was confident his team could build "the best dome in the world."
MULTIPLE USE
The complex will include a 40,000-seat indoor multifunctional stadium, a department store with restaurants and movie theaters, a five-star hotel and a business center, and an office building.
"Today is a very important day for Taipei, as 2.6 million residents will have a better place to go," said Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who signed the contract with Chao.
The new stadium will not only be a indoor stadium for baseball, it will be a good venue for large-scale concerts, international exhibitions and conventions, which many event organizers have yearned for, the mayor said.
Farglory will operate the Taipei Dome Complex for 50 years. After that, ownership and operation of the complex will revert to the Taipei City Government.
CONFIDENCE
"If the city government can hand over the land on time next year, we are confident that we can complete the project and start operations even earlier," Chao said.
The city government began demolishing structures on the site last month and will hand over the land to Farglory after the work is done.
However, it plans to restore the tobacco factory and warehouses and turn them into a museum and theater.
Ma said that the city government spent NT$20 billion to buy the land and then spent nearly seven years planning the dome project.
DELAYS
The project has been on hold for three years. In 2002, the Cabinet approved the city's proposal to turn the site into a dome complex. A construction team led by Farglory won the BOT bid in May 2004.
At the time Farglory said that it would begin construction in September last year, with completion scheduled for December next year.
But the city revoked Farglory's contractor's qualification after the team's designer -- Ricky Liu & Associates (劉培森建築師事務所) -- pulled out the project last October because of a disagreement over the allotment of shares in a planned dome company with Farglory.
After several rounds of appeals, the city government in June finally approved Farglory continuing the project with partners including designer HOK Sport+Venue+Event from the US and the Japanese construction firm Obayashi Corp.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six