by Anna Ford
February 2012
In an effort to restore a local neighborhood to it’s former Shikumen splendor developers have razed and rebuilt a stretch of Jianguo Xi Lu as a mixed-use area for businesses.
With the glory of Xintiandi’s redevelopment in mind and a huge number of local buildings having undergone restoration in the former French Concession this small area lining Jianguo Xi Lu near Yueyang Lu has attracted critics saying that the neighborhood is not being restored but rather rebuilt from the ground up and that it has all been “shanzhaied“.
The criticism comes after nearly 3,000 residents were moved out of the neighborhood in 2008 after discovering that the buildings were failing structurally and needed renovation. The government backed development company has said that they used the original 40,000 bricks to “restore” the protected Shikumen property and that many or the original architectural features of the neighborhood were in such poor condition that they could not be re-used. Local residents have said “obliterating historic structures and building new ones does not constitute preservation” but the laws enacted to protect old neighborhoods are often created in an effort not to retain the historic culture of an area but rather may be driven by economic profit according to Zheng Shiling an architecture expert from Tongji University.
The redevelopment of the neighborhood is a joint venture among Portman Holdings and HengFu Property Company with CBRE (Coldwell Banker/Richard Ellis) as the sole leasing and sales agent for the property which will be made up of 51 Shikumen style villas, 62 luxury serviced apartments and 4,000 square meters of retail space when completed. According to the press release, “the old Shikumen villas will be restored to their former glory, incorporating contemporary services and design innovations.”
Portman Holdings prides itself on being a company that will “develop the city, by defining the sky” but if the city is “restored” through the destruction of historic buildings and neighborhoods what value does it hold culturally except it’s own current economic value?
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Thanks so much for this piece, Anna! We live almost across the street from this project, and I’ve been wondering what on earth was being built. There are some really cool online GIS maps of Shanghai through the eras, and so I had seen the original footprint of that street corner and surmised from the dib and dabs emerging from the site that some effort to retain the footprint was underway (how successful we’ll see…) but could not tell from the fabulous perma scaffolding exactly [b]what[/b] was going up. Very interesting to learn more about the project background. That said, also curious to see what they finally unveil and what kind of retail and other tenants the place attracts…
Thanks for reading! It’s a really bizarre stretch of Jianguo Xi Lu and I’ve been looking at it for the past 18/19 months (time goes quick here) and there is was in the news…
It’s really a sad story…I think that someone thinks they are pulling the wool over our eyes and trying to convince us it’s “real” but it’s another fake in a city full of fakes.
Really hope you’ll do a follow-up when construction is done. (Agree that although I never saw the original, at least the bits of the project presently protruding seem fake.) In terms of what kind of stores it attracts, and the type of resident, am really curious, since this little corner is commercially far less expat-y relative to say, the northern bit of Yueyang. In terms of major neighborhood anchors, at this particular intersection there is already a grocery and a (local) school. Curious to see how future tenants mesh with the neighborhood and just how it turns out….
Since I’m just around the corner I’ll be keeping an eye on the progress…it was supposed to be completed at the end of 2010, but clearly it’s stalled right now. Once I see the CBRE signs go up we’ll now leasing and sales have begun…would be nice to check in and see how they talk about the “restoration”.