Grand Promenade

The Grand Promenade is a high-rise development located in the Sai Wan Ho area of Hong Kong. The complex consists of five towers. Towers 2, 3, and 5, which are all interconnected and listed as one skyscraper by real estate data company Emporis, were built in 2005 and contain 66 floors each; each tower rises 219m. Towers 1 and 6 were also built in 2005 and contain 63 floors each, rising 213m. The entire complex, also known as the Sai Wan Ho Harbour Plaza, was developed by Henderson Land Development and its subsidiary, The Hongkong and Yaumati Ferry Co Ltd. The building is composed entirely of residential units, and contains 2,020 apartments.HistoryHenderson Land won a tender for a site in Sai Wan Ho for Grand Promenade with a land premium of HK$2.43 billion in January 2001. Six months later, the developer successfully applied for and was granted permission to exclude the public transport terminus from the gross floor area in its building plan. The ensuing controversy which was caused when the Government maintained that former Director of Building Authority Leung Chin-man had reasonably exercised his discretionary powers to exempt the area of a public transport terminus in the gross floor area calculation of the development. The effect was to allow the addition of 10,700 square meters to the project and doubling the number of apartments from 1,008 to 2,020, costing the government HK$125 million in lost revenue.In November 2005, the Audit Commission accused Leung of not conferring with other government departments before exercising his discretionary power, thus handing the developer an additional HK$3.2 billion. Leung tabled a judicial review. The two sides reached a deal in May 2006 when the Commissioner dropped legal proceedings, and Leung abandoned his judicial review.