West Kowloon Cultural District Project - Project Delivery Update

The November event of APM HK held at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club was on 13.11.2012. The event featured a presentation entitled West Kowloon Cultural District Project Project Delivery Update. made by Jeremy Stowe, Head of Construction + Project Management West Kowloon Cultural District Authority. Jeremy shared with members and guests the latest development on Planning, Designing, Constructing, and Delivery updates of WKCD.

Jeremy Stowe has over 20 years of Design and Construction Project experience in Asia, having held roles on both the Consultant and Client side, as Project Architect and Project Director on numerous multi-disciplinary large scale infrastructure projects. A UK Registered Architect he was appointed in early 2012 as Head of Construction + Project Management at the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA).

The WKCDA projects master plan was completed towards the end of 2011 after the Authority unveiled the proposed Development Plan (DP), based on the City Park concept from Foster + Partners. The Draft West Kowloon Cultural District Development Plan was gazette on 30 March 2012; the Development Plan has been submitted for endorsement to the Chief Executive. Construction is scheduled to begin mid-2013 and the first batch of Core Arts and Cultural Facilities to include the Xiqu Centre Phase 1 and the Freespace in Phase 1 of the Park, are scheduled to be completed starting from 2015.

Phase 1

2014-2015

1.Art Pavilion and Great Park ( Early Portion of Park)

2015-2017

2.Xiqu Centre (Main Theatre, Tea House and Education Facility) *Chinese opera (Chinese: /; Pinyin: xq)

3.Freespace (with Music Box) and out-door stage

4.Centre for Contemporary Performance ( 3Blackboxes and Education Facility)

2017-2020

5.M+ Phase 1

6.Lyric Theatre

7.Medium Theatre I

8.Music Centre (Concert Hall, Recital Hall and Education Facility)

9.Mega Performance Venue**

10.Exhibition Centre**

11.Musical Theatre**

** Subject to alternative funding options

Phase II

Beyond 2020

12.M+ (Phase 2)

13.Great Theatre

14.Medium Theatre II

15.Xiqu Small Theatre

WKCD Authority is facing challenges in the sheer scale of the project and the requirement of moving ahead with the adjacent construction of the High Speed Rail and other Public Infrastructure Work (PIW) while without heaving all consultants being in place. The major task for the WKCD Authority is to keep the ball rolling, making Planning, Design, and Construction decisions using methodical approach of cost / time / constructability analysis.

Balancing the needs in terms of maintaining the theme of the Foster design and raising interest from private sector has been major task of the WKCD team under the leadership of Jeremy. Top side development of Hotel / Office / Residential are one of the tricky part, as private sector is yet to be on board, the WKCD authority has to move ahead with the design and developed in close co-ordination with other community and government facilities and related engineering works (collectively known as Public Infrastructure Works (PIW)), such as roads, drainage, sewage and water supply system, etc.

They are required to support the arts and cultural venues, residential, commercial and hotel developments within the District. The exact scope for the proposed entrustment to the Authority is to be finalized dependent on the degree of imminence and interfacing complexity between the PIW and the arts and cultural facilities.

In closing, Jeremy noted that there will be major work laying ahead of us in the construction industry until 2020. He expected there will be up to 20,000 job opportunities in this project in the next ten years of this construction period.