World’s most expensive parking space in Hong Kong changes owners for US$969,000, triple the city’s median home price

The transacted price is equivalent to US$7,205 per sq ft for a standard parking space that measures 134.5 sq ft, more than three times Hong Kong’s median home price

The seller, logistics heir Johnny Cheung Shun-yee, said he sold the last of his four spots in The Center to someone who owns an office in the same tower

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The Center, 99 Queen's Road Central, Central on 2 November 2017. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 11:51am, 23 Oct 2019Updated: 6:00pm, 23 Oct 2019

A parking bay at The Center – the 73-storey Hong Kong office tower that still holds the world record as the costliest commercial building ever sold – changed hands recently for HK$7.6 million (US$969,000), making it the most expensive spot on earth to park a vehicle.

Johnny Cheung Shun-yee, one of the 10 investors in the consortium that paid US$5.15 billion last year for The Center, told the South China Morning Post that he had sold the last of his four car parks in the tower to someone who owns an office in the same building because “the buyer now needs a car park lot,” declining to identify the buyer.

The transacted price is equivalent to HK$56,505 per sq ft for a standard parking space that measures 134.5 sq ft (12.5 square metres), more than three times Hong Kong’s median home price, which itself had topped global rankings for nine consecutive years, according to data by CBRE.

The sale price, in a city where nearly one in five residents lived below the government-defined poverty line in 2017, underscores the wealth gap that has pushed Hong Kong into the worst political crisis in decades. The unprecedented protests are the culmination of many decades of neglect by a laissez-faire government of the underclass, where housing affordability and a yawning wealth gap have become the most poignant manifestation of this dissatisfaction.

“Good times or bad times, there are still ultra-rich people paying whatever needed to get what they like,” said James Mak, Midland Commercial's district sales director.