Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store Co (新光三越) yesterday sealed a deal with the Bureau of High Speed Rail to lease a building at Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to turn it into a shopping complex.
The nation’s leading chain department store, which won the 10-year operate-transfer (OT) contract last week for NT$505 million (US$15.6 million), will turn the building into a department store, which is slated to open next spring.
The deal will add 4.5 ping (15m²) of floor space to an adjacent Shin Kong department store that has 260,000 ping of floor space and is also due to open next spring.
Wu Tung-hsing (吳東興), chairman of the department store, said he hoped the OT project would enable his company to better serve residents of northern Kaohsiung.
The government-owned building, located between high-speed rail and mass rapid transit stations in Zuoying, has five stories above ground and two stories below ground. The MRT and high-speed rail stations are connected to it underground.
Chang Tze-yu (張子裕), deputy director of the station area development division at the bureau, said the OT project was part of a transit-oriented development plan to generate revenues and boost prosperity near high-speed rail stations. In the contract, the company may extend the lease by five years if it makes a profit in four of the contract’s 10 years.
Wu Nai-tzu (吳奈慈), regional director at Jones Land LaSalle, a property consulting firm, said the transaction promised a fair profitability outlook in light of heavy passenger traffic flow and scarce retail competition in the area.
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