Another One? New Financial District Planned for Southern Beijing

It looks like the corporate crowd might be getting a new home with a new financial center planned for Beijing. According to the Wall Street Journal, a 20-year project to create the Lize Financial District in Beijing’s southern suburbs is already underway.

The project, administrated by the government-owned Beijing Lize Financial Business District Holdings Ltd., has a cost projection of 110 billion yuan and would consist of eighty skyscrapers and three new subway lines, adding between 8 and 9.5 million square meters of floor space to China’s capital.

If all goes as planned, the first offices should open by 2018. But Beijing is no stranger to unfinished projects, and many are skeptical about whether or not a new financial center is viable or even what the city needs at this point. The firm backing the project, however, is confident in its success.

Who knows, if the new center turns out to be a hit, this time in six years we might be blogging from a 50-story high-rise on what is now middle-of-nowhere farmland. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Photo: globalconstructionwatch.com