Ruentex Development Co (潤泰新), a major supermarket operator and property developer, yesterday opened a new shopping center at Songshan Railway Station in Taipei, targeting NT$1 billion (US$34.4 million) revenue a year.
The three-floor Citylink shopping center is part of Ruentex’s plan to help revamp the Songshan Railway Station, which it won in a build-operate-transfer (BOT) project bid for NT$3.2 billion in 2007 with the right to use the land for 52 years.
After the first floor of the shopping center opened to the public yesterday, the second floor will be opened by the second quarter of next year and the third floor is set to open in the second quarter of 2014, Citylink vice president Eason Lin (林裕盛) said.
Lin said the company would rent the first floor to restaurants, the second floor to restaurants and clothes shops, and the third floor to cultural and creative businesses.
The project also includes a 17-floor station complex and a 21-floor multifunction building required by the Taiwan Railway Administrations, Ruentex chairman Jean Tsang-jiunn (簡滄圳) said.
“Currently about 30,000 passengers a day pass through the station. The number of passengers will more than double after the station becomes a Mass Rapid Transit [MRT] station,” Jean said.
In addition to the Songshan project, Ruentex has 18 more projects to be carried out in the next 10 years, including three other similar railway projects close to Neihu MRT station, Nangang MRT station, and New Taipei City’s (新北市) Sanchong District (三重), he said.
“Nangang will be a joint station for railway, MRT and high-speed railway, and Sanchong will be the intersection point for MRT Sinjhuang Line and Taoyuan International Airport MRT,” he said.
Neihu and Nangang projects are expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2014, while the Sinjhuang project is expected for the end of 2014, Jean said.
Ruentex’s revenue increased year-on-year by 1.77 percent and dropped month-on-month by 14.72 percent to NT$435.78 million last month, after its first 11-months revenue fell by 17.3 percent to NT$6.17 billion from a year earlier.
Ruentex shares fell 1.65 percent to NT$59.5 yesterday, up 83.64 percent since the beginning of the year, the Taiwan Stock Exchange’s data showed.
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