Hengqin’s ‘Creative Culture City’ start delayed to 2018

The chairman of Hong Kong-listed developer Lai Fung Holdings Ltd., Chew Fook Aun, says the company’s first phase of the cultural-cum-commercial project in Hengqin – Creative Culture City – is expected to be completed in the first half of 2018, a timeframe pushed back from the originally slated 2017.
Mr. Chew informed Hong Kong reporters at the briefing of the company’s full-year results on Thursday.
Lai Fung and eSun Holdings Ltd., both part of the Hong Kong property conglomerate Lai Sun Group with responsibility for the Hengqin project, jointly announced to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in late April last year of their plan to co-operate with U.S. Company Major League Gaming (MLG) to build an e-sports gaming arena in the ‘V-Zone’, a video game venue that is part of the first phase of the group’s 18 billion yuan Creative and Culture City project on Hengqin.
Phase 1 of the project, occupying a total gross floor area at 2.8 million square feet, comprises a hotel, workshop, performance halls, ‘cultural studios’ and other ancillary facilities, according to Lai Fung’s latest filing of its results for the year ended July 31, 2015.
The construction work of Phase 1 of the project is expected to commence by the end of 2015, the filing said.