BEIJING, Feb. 17 -- Shui On Land Ltd said yesterday it will invest 10 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion) to develop a mixed-use property project in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

    It will be the first large-scale development in central China for the company, which is Hong Kong developer Shui On Group's mainland property arm.

    Shui On Land, developer of the Xintiandi entertainment area in Shanghai, bought the Wuhan land, which is located along the Yangtze riverside, for 3.39 billion yuan last April.

    The Shanghai-based developer plans to develop the 605,000-square-meter parcel into an area comprising office and residential buildings, hotels and commercial facilities.

    The project, with a total floor space of 1.5 million square meters, will take eight years to complete, said company Chairman Vincent Lo.

    The first phase of the project will include a complex called Hankou Tiandi, modeled on Shanghai's Xintiandi, housing upscale restaurants, bars, shops and boutiques.

    Shui On Land will retain and renovate nine buildings built in the 1920s and 1930s.

    The developer expects the Hankou Tiandi to start leasing as early as next February.

    A 250-meter-tall office tower is also planned in its blueprint.

    Wuhan ranks tenth among second-tier city destinations for multinationals expansion on the mainland, a recent survey by Jones Lang LaSalle reported. The city's average disposable income was 10,850 yuan last year, up 13.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the Wuhan Statistics Bureau.

    The potentially lucrative real estate market has attracted a host of developers, including Hutchison Whampoa, New World Group and Shimao Group, since last year.

    Shui On issued US$375 million in bonds in October to fund the Wuhan project. It is also preparing for an initial public offering in Hong Kong in the second quarter this year to raise around US$1 billion to finance its mainland property development.

    (Source: ShanghaiDaily.com)