Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉), vowing to transform a 3 hectare commercial district next to the Nangang Station into a transportation hub and a biotech belt connecting clinical research centers in the Nangang District (南港) and production lines in Hsinchu through the High Speed Rail.
During his speech to commemorate the occasion, Ko said that Nangang is well-positioned to become a biotech research hub, due to its close proximity to central governmental research institutes, including the Academia Sinica’s biotech park — which is scheduled to open in October next year — the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Food and Drug Administration.
Ko said that with three rail services — the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system, the HSR and the Taiwan Railways — criss-crossing the station, providing Nangang with transportation links, the district will become Taipei’s “eastern gateway.”
Photo: CNA
The mayor said that the city’s East District Gateway Project will be put under the city government-led urban renewal scheme.
He said that needs identified for Nangang’s commercial developments include hotels, stores and the Taipei Pop Music Center, a city government agency set up to promote Taiwanese pop music, which is under construction.
Taipei Department of Urban Development said the city government would seek to expand the commercial district by joining forces with the TRA to seek available city government-owned land in areas around the nearby Zhongxiao military camp and acquire land owned by the Chiao Thai Hsing Flour Mill, to establish a biotech industrial cluster.
The land needed for development would be acquired through city government-led urban renewal, where the government and landowners seek to work out an agreement regarding distribution of floor space in superficies.
Chou said that the cluster would be used for small-scale pharmaceutical production and clinical tests related to biotech researches.
The department said that it had set out plans to build the Nangang Station East Terminal into a 16-story building, with the first floor to be used as a bus station.
The second to 16th floors are to be used for the establishment of hotels and other commercial properties, and the city government plans to accept business proposals in September next year.
A 34-story building has also been planned in the commercial district next to Nangang Station.
It is to cover a floor space of 52,000 ping (171,901m2), with the first floor to serve as a bus station and other stories to be used for stores, hotels and offices of biotech firms, the department said.
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