Economics

Hong Kong Turns an Old Airport Into Billions Worth of Luxury Condos

  • Latest land sale fetches record price from mainland companies
  • Sky-high prices will do little to address affordability crisis
Cranes stand at a construction site at the former Kai Tak airport area.Photographer: Eduardo Leal/Bloomberg
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Hong Kong’s old Kai Tak airport was famed for its hair-raising landings, as planes skimmed apartment rooftops before touching down just minutes from bustling Kowloon.

Now, the site is morphing into one of the city’s biggest real estate developments with multi-million dollar apartments slowly filling up even as new parcels of land go for record prices. China Resources Land Ltd. and Poly Property Group Co. last week paidBloomberg Terminal HK$12.9 billion ($1.7 billion) for a plot, an unprecedented amount from mainland developers, who snapped up almost 60% of residential land sold by the government in the first half.