Grand Central Plaza () is a commercial development located near the town centre of

Sha Tin Sha Tin, also spelt Shatin, is a neighbourhood along Shing Mun River in the eastern New Territories, Hong Kong. Administratively, it is part of the Sha Tin District. Sha Tin is one of the neighbourhoods of the Sha Tin New Town project. The ne ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. It comprises two 16-storey office towers atop a multi-storey shopping podium called HomeSquare which specialises in home decor and furnishings. It is owned by

Sun Hung Kai Properties Sun Hung Kai Properties Limited (SHKP; ) is a listed corporation and the largest property developer in Hong Kong as of 2019. The company is controlled by the Kwok family trust, largely the Kwok brothers. The Kwok family trust was set up by Kw ...

, which also owns the nearby

New Town Plaza New Town Plaza is a shopping mall in the town centre of Sha Tin, Hong Kong. Developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties, it was the biggest shopping centre in the New Territories when it was completed in the early 1980s. Covering 200,000 square metre ...

, and was completed in 1995.

Tenants

HomeSquare is a thematic

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

housed in the podium base of the development and designed by architect Barrie Ho. It is owned by

, and has five floors filled with shops offering home furnishings. The grand opening and renaming ceremony was held on 7 November 2010 following refurbishment of the retail levels. An

IKEA IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been t ...

store, one of four in Hong Kong, occupies of the uppermost podium levels and was the largest in Hong Kong until the Kowloon Bay store relocated from

Telford Gardens Telford Gardens (often referred to as "Telford Garden") is a private housing estate located above the MTR Kowloon Bay Depot and alongside Kowloon Bay station in Kowloon Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was jointly built by Hang Lung Properties ...

to MegaBox. Atop the shopping levels are two office towers which provide more than of office space. File:HomeSquare Entrance 2013.jpg, HomeSquare entrance File:GrandCentralPlace 20060128.jpg, Atrium before renovation File:HomeSquare Void View 201204.jpg, Atrium after renovation File:HomeSquare Level 5 200912.jpg, Fifth storey

Footbridge controversy

Grand Central Plaza is part of the New Town Plaza development. Both properties are owned by the same developer, Sun Hung Kai. Most patrons access Grand Central Plaza by descending a rampway attached to

Sha Tin station Sha Tin station, formerly known as Sha Tin railway station ( or ) is a station on the of Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system. The station is located in the town centre of Sha Tin. The station was formerly on the main line of the ...

and walking a short distance along the public pavement of Pai Tau Street. The government and Sun Hung Kai Properties proposed in 2002 the construction of a four-metre-wide footbridge along this street to link the railway station concourse with Grand Central Plaza and the Sha Tin Government Offices. Sun Hung Kai has offered to finance the bridge, and Grand Central Plaza is equipped with a reserved stub at the first storey to which the footbridge is meant to connect. The proposal was met with great resistance from residents of Pai Tau Village, located directly between the railway station and the shopping centre. The villagers objected to the trimming of trees which shield the buildings from the busy roadway, and stated that the footbridge would bring bad feng shui to their traditional village. They also complained that their concerns were ignored by the

Sha Tin District Council The Sha Tin District Council is the district council for the Sha Tin District in Hong Kong. It is one of 18 such councils. The Sha Tin District Council currently consists of 42 members, of which the district is divided into 41 constituencies, ...

, and that their counter-proposal for a different footbridge route was not taken seriously. However, in May 2012 the government stated that they would not pursue construction of the footbridge in the short-term owing to various engineering and cost concerns. They instead outlined several plans to improve the walkway along Pai Tau Street. File:HK_HomeSquare_OpenningForFutureFootbridge.JPG, Reservation for proposed footbridge File:HK_PaiTauVillage_ProtestBanners_against_footbridge_construction.JPG, Protest banners at Pai Tau Village File:HK ShaTinRuralCommittee ResponseBanner.jpg, Banners at the Sha Tin Rural Committee

References

External links

HomeSquare shopping centre

IKEA Shatin store
{{Shopping centres in Hong Kong Sha Tin Shopping centres in Hong Kong Sun Hung Kai Properties 1995 establishments in Hong Kong