Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) yesterday celebrated the opening of a new commercial tower in Taipei’s prime Xinyi District (信義) that at full occupancy could generate more than NT4 billion (US$134.13 million) in annual rental income.
Standing 272m tall, Taipei Nan Shan Plaza (台北南山廣場) is divided into three parts: seven floors of mixed-use mall space, 48 floors of offices, and a diamond-shaped entrance with a public cultural and art space.
Nan Shan Life won a 50-year lease contract from the Taipei City Government in 2012 to develop the skyscraper on the former site of the Taipei World Trade Center’s Exhibition Hall 2 for NT$26.8 billion (US$898.70 million).
The life insurer declined to comment on rents, but property firms have said the new complex has replaced Taipei 101 as the most expensive office space in Taiwan, with average rents of more NT$4,000 per ping (3.30579m2).
That figure might be NT$5,000 per ping on the top floors, international property broker Jones Lang LaSalle Taiwan said.
The complex has 193,843m2 of floor space divided over 48 stories and four basement floors, according to Nan Shan.
Tenants include international accounting firm Deloitte & Touche Taiwan, which occupies seven floors, or 8,000 ping of office space, Nan Shan communications officials said.
Upscale mall operator Breeze Center (微風廣場) has inked a 20-year lease to turn the mall space into its third department store in the district after Breeze Xinyi (微風信義) and Breeze Song Gao (微風松高).
That department store is due to open in the fourth quarter and will feature luxury brands and eateries, officials said, adding that restaurants would make up 35 percent of the mall’s floor space.
In addition, Breeze Center is to open a supermarket covering 2,222 ping in the plaza’s basement, making it the largest supermarket inside a department store in Asia, officials said.
Nan Shan Life has set up the entrance as a cultural and multi-purpose space, which is currently exhibiting art by physically challenged artists from Taiwan and Japan.
The building, the second-tallest in Taipei, might yield NT$4.6 billion in yearly rental income for Nan Shan, officials said.
As of March, the insurer managed assets of NT$4.15 trillion, with 10 million outstanding insurance policies and 6.1 million customer accounts, company data showed.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors