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Urban? Suburban? Finding the Right Home in New Beijing

Beijing Central Business District

When you alight from your aircraft at Capital International Airport, you are standing in Chaoyang District. The Beijing Central Business District (CBD) is an internationally oriented centre for business, finance and fine living in the heart of Chaoyang District and the city itself. The CBD features the municipality’s best infrastructure, with excellent properties for living, business and pleasure. It has a vibrant, cutting-edged business atmosphere. This makes it the most popular residential area for expatriates in Beijing. Extending to the Sanlitun, Lufthansa Centre and Airport Expressway, it is home to about 3,000 domestic and foreign companies, including 500 multinational corporations, 570 foreign representative office, and 150 foreign-funded banks, insurance companies and agencies. In 2006, nearly 300,000 square metres of new space for business operations were added to the area, most of which was destined to be used by merchandisers in the Central International Trade Center, Century Fortune Centre, China Trade Center and in the Wanda Plaza. As of 2008, among the construction projects planned for the Beijing CBD, at least 19 contained business plans with scales involving more than one million square metres. Pedestrian Commercial Street, located east off Dongdaqiao Lu, which opened in early 2007, offers international luxuries and international brands and some first class brands, including GUCCI, Prada and many upscale bars and restaurants. Many of the world's leading retailers are trying to establish themselves in the CBD in pursuit of its high-end consumers. The Yintai Centre offers international brands such as Chanel and Armani and the newly opened Wanda Plaza has a "high-end goods" department store with an area of more than 10,000 square metres.

Shunyi

Shunyi District, which lies close to the Beijing Capital International Airport, is home to most of Beijing's new crop of luxury villa developments, high-walled, heavily guarded compounds that are home to expatriates and wealthy Chinese, replete with names such as Beijing Riviera, Yosemite Villas and Chateau Regalia. According to housing experts, Beijing's luxury home sales are expected to remain strong over the next three years, because more expatriates are expected to move into the city for business purposes and because of the 2008 Olympic Games. Further, governmental regulations suspending the building of new villas in the city indicate that prices will remain firm. Some new villa projects that were approved before the ban on land use for villas went into effect are being completed and opened for sale, including Maple Place and Dragon Bay Villa. The Wenyu Villa area, the oldest high-end villa complex, continues to attract CEOs and diplomats as buyers and residents. Prices at this complex have now reached 30,000 yuan (US$3,900) per square metre and the experts said that the prices of villas and town homes will continue to rise, while rents will stabilize in 2007. Adding to the mix is a new business district near Capital Airport that was included in the municipality's 11th Five Year Programme (2006–2010). Many of the water-based events for the 2008 Olympic Games will be held in the Chaobai River (Chaobaihe) area, which will be developed as a resort area featuring sports, amusements and business facilities. International schools such as The British School of Beijing, The Children’s Learning Centre of Beijing and The Western Academy of Beijing are located in this area and provide top-quality educations for children living in Beijing.

Wangjing

Extending north from the Fourth and Fifth Ring roads and from the Jingcheng Expressway, Wangjing, the largest international residential community in Beijing, is known as the“First Community of Asia.” It covers 14 square kilometres with a total population of nearly 330,000. Known for its South Korean atmosphere—its businesses often feature signs written in Chinese and Korean—Wangjing is becoming more international by the day as foreigners are settling in and western-style restaurants and bars are appearing on the scene to serve them. Before 1998, this was a dry, isolated area populated with poor, almost deserted villages that were considered far from the city centre. However, after six years of development and the construction of many new roads and a light-rail subway line, Wangjing has taken on a new look. In 1990, the German electrical giant Siemens moved in with a boost and things started turning around in the area. In 1993, the Airport Expressway was finished and in recent years, Wangjing has experienced flourishing residential compound construction, such as Wangjing Xincheng, Atlantic Place, Top Aristocratic and other middle- and high-end properties. The traffic situation has been improved greatly. It is surrounded by four expressways and nine exits to neighbouring areas have been completed recently as well as Beijing Subway Line 13, which connects the CBD, the Asian and Olympic Games Villages and Financial Street. Wangjing has also attracted lots of business opportunities, including Siemens, Motorola, LG, Panasonic, IKEA, Carrefour and WalMart. Wangjing Shopping Centre, at the southeast corner of the Wangjing area, faces the junction of two major roads, Guangshun Jie and West Futong Jie, which lie at the core of Wangjing, along with several five-star hotels such as Holiday lnn Lido hotel and Harbor Plaza Hotel.

Financial Street

Jinrongjie, Financial Street, in Beijing is more than just a 1,700-metre long street in Xicheng District. It's one of the key financial and decision-making centres for domestic businesses in China. Beijing Financial Street lies to the east of the western section of the Second Ring Road. It begins at Chang'an Jie on its south and ends at Fuchengmennei Dajie on its north. After seven years' construction, Beijing Financial Street has by now become a hot spot and a new rising financial centre for developing China's banking and financial services in the capital. It is home to more than 1,200 government departments, financial institutions and corporations, including China's largest banks and insurance companies, as well as top financial regulators such as the central bank, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. Within the circumference of one square kilometre, more than 10 skyscrapers have been erected on the street. More than 300 financial institutions, including the People's Bank of China, The People's Insurance Company of China, Commercial and Industrial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Communication Bank of China, China Securities Regulatory Commission and the CITIC Industrial Bank, are found there. The hub has attracted other business entities such as China Mobile, China Telecom, China Netcom, Datang Power and China Yangtze Power, which have established headquarters there. Some two dozen international financial institutions, such as the Royal Bank of Canada, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, moved offices to Financial Street in 2006 because of its high-quality amenities and quality office buildings. Nearing its 2007 completion, observers are keenly watching the progress being made along Financial Street and what it will do to keep players from moving to Shanghai. Statistics indicate that the assets managed by institutions on Financial Street have exceeded 16 trillion yuan (US$2.08 trillion), accounting for 40 percent of the country's overall financial assets. And the cash flow here could be as high as 10 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) each day. According to Wang Gongwei, chairman of the Financial Street Holding Company Limited, the company has seen net profits grow at an average 20 percent to 30 percent each year since the initial public offering (IPO) on the Shenzhen bourse in 2000. For 2007, they will finish around one million square metres of construction, including several office buildings, a shopping mall, a service apartment and a coffee bar street, all aimed to improve amenities for our clients. Meanwhile, a 2.6-kilometre-long underground road is under construction to improve the traffic on Financial Street and to strengthen the area's ability to deal with emergencies. Except for two projects, the construction of Financial Street will be finished by the end of 2007 and then the zone will be expanded to around a 4-square-kilometre area within 10 years, serving about 1,800 clients. Beside setting up some new buildings in the eastern, southern and western direction of the current financial street, the company will resort to a functional exchange mode, encouraging non-financial entities to exchange their offices with financial enterprises. When strengthening the construction of Financial Street, the Financial Street Holding Company Limited will also expand business to cities outside Beijing. Currently, they have had several projects in South China's Guangdong Province, East China's Jiangxi Province and Beijing's neighbouring Tianjin.