Fuk Man Road livens up
Fuk Man Road has been having a bad time of it over the past couple of years, with many shops boarded up, and lack of footfall along the road. However, over the past couple of weeks three new businesses have moved in.
First, the new Watsons has taken over the space next to the old JHC. And it’s small – just one shop in area. The range of goods on sale is tiny, and really not much more than Fusion sells. We will wait to see if this is a mistake for A S Watson, or just an initial toehold in the area. We wonder what will fill the large space between the new Watsons and the new hairdressers (see below).
Second to open is a new hairdressers, CutEx Icon, on the corner of the alleyway from King Man Street, opposite the clothing/watch repair shop and next to the abandoned JHC store. This has been used for a number of different businesses over the past few years; let’s hope this one lasts longer than the average.
Finally, a new restaurant/cafe has opened close to the Thai food alley. Called ‘Sons’ Lab’ (壹屋子), it does a range of Taiwanese style food with a short, but mixed, menu. These include set meals with prices ranging from $40 – $48 which include a packet drink, with $4 extra if you switch to a soft drink. There is an additional selection of sides (soft boiled egg, crispy fried chicken, deserts …) with prices ranging from $6 – $15. There is also a selection of speciality deserts all featuring taro balls with various other ingredients (dried longan/ red dates; snow fungus/apricot kennels/papaya etc).
What’s the future for Centro?
Estates agents, Savills, have announced that they are putting the whole Centro Building up for tender. The Centro block has 10-storeys and site area of 34,047 sq ft. The total floor area is 266,562 sq ft with rental shops area of about 56,504 sq ft and 389 parking spaces. The final date for submitting a bid is 16 October.
Brad Gotfried is understood to have bought the Centro block around the time of SARS in 2003. The inheritor of a jeans fortune will have bought it cheaply. Fifteen years later Brad appears ready to cash in because of the building’s appreciation. He is the boss of Urban Entertainment Ltd, operator of the Tikitiki Bowling Bar, the swank nightclub with several bars and restaurants and a host of in-house entertainers. The Fusion “super-store” occupies the floor below the Tikitiki.
Neither Urban Entertainment or Savills seems to be answering questions that inevitably arise from this announcement. This comes just after the Centro Building management requested planning permission to turn the top two floors of the car park into a market just a few weeks ago.
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