Four international hoteliers are jockeying for a spot in Taipei 101 and the right to be called one of world's highest hotels, executives of the 508m skyscraper said yesterday.
The hotels include the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, the Ritz-Carlton, the St. Regis and the Le Meridien which enjoys a strategic alliance with Japan's Nikko Hotel.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
"Four Seasons is aggressively negotiating with us," said Scott Chen (
"We're in constant contact -- about twice a week by phone and e-mail," he said.
The proposed five-star hotel would occupy approximately 300 rooms and be located on floors 67 through 84, with an exclusive shuttle elevator taking guests directly to the hotel's 67th floor lobby, said Matthew Shaw, director of Jones Lang LaSalle Taiwan, the primary leasing agent for the Taipei 101 tower.
Only the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, located in the Jin Mao Building, would have one floor of rooms higher, boasting the world's highest hotel rooms on the 85th floor.
TFCC management team floated the tower hotel proposal two months ago, and the response has been excellent, Shaw said. More than seven hotels contacted top brass at Taipei Financial, which narrowed the list to four.
Competition is tight as "there is a fundamental lack of five-star hotel property in Taipei," Shaw said.
Construction of the 101-floor, 60,000-ping (198,000m2) office tower is slated to be completed in October next year. The tower is now 90 stories high.
Market watchers have speculated that office rents in Taipei 101 may hover above NT$4,000 per ping after the skyscraper opens next year, but Shaw dismissed the claims, saying that figure is far from accurate.
"There is a shortage of Grade A space, but to charge in excess of NT$4000 per ping would be unrealistic."
Shaw added that Taipei 101 would set a new office real estate benchmark for others to follow.
According to a market report by the CB Richard Ellis Ltd, premium grade offices rents have slid 3.03 percent from NT$2,427 to NT$2,353 per ping each month since the beginning of the year. And with new office space in the pipeline, rents are expected to continue to drop in the near future, the report said.
In addition to the prospective hotel, the most important anchor tenant of the new building will be the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (
"The Taiwan Stock Exchange will occupy about seven floors in the building, or about 6,000 pings," according to administrative vice president Terry Shen (
"Also one of our shareholders -- Chinatrust Commercial Bank (
Meanwhile, executives yesterday also said they are close to finalizing a deal with Pacific Sogo Department Store (太平洋崇光百貨) to rent 1,000 pings (3,305m2) in the adjacent 23,000-ping (76,027m2), four-floor shopping mall.
The Sogo deal should be concluded within 10 days and 88 percent of retail space is already full, said Simon Van de Velde, senior development, leasing and marketing manager at Lend Lease Pty Ltd Taiwan.
The mall is slated to formally open on Nov. 14.
SEEKING CLARITY: Washington should not adopt measures that create uncertainties for ‘existing semiconductor investments,’ TSMC said referring to its US$165 billion in the US Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) told the US that any future tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could reduce demand for chips and derail its pledge to increase its investment in Arizona. “New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona’s significant investment plan in Phoenix,” the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce. TSMC issued the warning in response to a solicitation for comments by the department on a possible tariff on semiconductor imports by US President Donald Trump’s
‘FAILED EXPORT CONTROLS’: Jensen Huang said that Washington should maximize the speed of AI diffusion, because not doing so would give competitors an advantage Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday criticized the US government’s restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, saying that the policy was a failure and would only spur China to accelerate AI development. The export controls gave China the spirit, motivation and government support to accelerate AI development, Huang told reporters at the Computex trade show in Taipei. The competition in China is already intense, given its strong software capabilities, extensive technology ecosystems and work efficiency, he said. “All in all, the export controls were a failure. The facts would suggest it,” he said. “The US
The government has launched a three-pronged strategy to attract local and international talent, aiming to position Taiwan as a new global hub following Nvidia Corp’s announcement that it has chosen Taipei as the site of its Taiwan headquarters. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday last week announced during his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei that the Nvidia Constellation, the company’s planned Taiwan headquarters, would be located in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei. Huang’s decision to establish a base in Taiwan is “primarily due to Taiwan’s talent pool and its strength in the semiconductor
French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed gratitude to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) for its plan to invest approximately 250 million euros (US$278 million) in a joint venture in France focused on the semiconductor and space industries. On his official X account on Tuesday, Macron thanked Hon Hai, also known globally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), for its investment projects announced at Choose France, a flagship economic summit held on Monday to attract foreign investment. In the post, Macron included a GIF displaying the national flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan), as he did for other foreign investors, including China-based