Have you been to a shopping mall on a cruise ship? Meet Whampoa Garden. Whampoa Garden is a well-known middle-class housing estate in Hong Kong, and it once became another “Little Japan” because of various Japanese department stores opening in the area. Let’s talk about the history of the shopping mall The Whampoa, which covers an area of more than one million square feet.
Before Whampoa Garden was developed, the land was occupied by Whampoa Dockyard. And that explains why there is such a signature cruise ship located in the area.
The façade of the ship just resembles the real one. When I was a child, I wondered whether the ship was a preserved property, but this is just a ship for decoration. This ship never sailed in the sea, and was constructed in Whampoa from scratch in the year of 1989. From these pictures, you could see how the construction took place and it was quite extraordinary.
If you go inside the ship, you could also see the corridor, the round windows and the lifebuoy, which just resembles the real ship as well. The ship used to have a unique floor plan, which marked the shop directory of each floor with the cross-section of the ship, but it has since been removed due to refurbishment works.
Japanese department store Yaohan was the first tenant occupying the ship. Yaohan Whampoa, the third outlet of the group in Hong Kong, opened in December 1988 and covers an area of 150,000 square feet. Until Yaohan declared bankruptcy in November 1997, they leased part of the ship, as well as both floors of the area in Oak Mansions.
AEON, which is the current tenant in the ship, still preserves some of the elements from Yaohan, like the food court which is common in Japanese department stores.
Basement two of the ship is also home to Metro Broadcast, a radio station that is owned by the property owner Cheung Kong Properties.
When Metro Broadcast began broadcasting in 1991, its headquarters was located in the basement floor of Treasure World instead. The most memorable thing for the neighborhood was the chance to meet the celebrities up close, because pedestrians could see right inside the live broadcast rooms in the mall corridor. Metro Broadcast moved its headquarters to the ship in 1996.
There is also a hidden public space inside the ship. The rooftop of the ship is actually open to the public. You could see that the roof was once covered with soft cushions commonly used in children’s playgrounds. However the rooftop is now deserted and abandoned.
Gourmet Place is also a famous attraction in Whampoa. Originally collaborated with the famous food critic Chua Lam in 2000, the building is home to a number of unique restaurants including Wing Lai Yuen, a Chinese restaurant famous for Sichuan “Dan Dan” noodles and Din Tai Fung, which is now moved out.
Gourmet Place was a must-go place for tourists back in the days, and a shuttle bus was re-decorated into a float and performed in the 2001 Chinese New Year Parade to promote the place.
The Whampoa was also home to Nine Seafood Place, a flagship merchant that aims to resemble the Tsukiji Market in Japan, with a number of restaurants and seafood merchants located within the same premise. It seemed to attract the crowd looking for fresh seafood and high-end restaurants when it was first opened.
Unfortunately, Nine Seafood Place is no longer able to attract the crowds as the novelty wore off fast. Part of the area is now converted to a market selling fresh produce, which successfully attracts the neighborhood looking for daily necessities.
Besides Yaohan and AEON, The Whampoa was also home to different department stores such as Marks & Spencer, Wing On, Chinese Arts & Crafts and China Resources, as well as fast fashion brands like ESPRIT, H&M, Uniqlo and Pull and Bear in the past, however they also lost the momentum and failed to sustain their business in the area.
BHS, the once high-street brand in the UK, was opened in Whampoa in 1996, as a big revamp of the mall. It was the anchor tenant of Fashion World and was operated under a franchise agreement with the property owner’s retail arm Watsons Group.
The outlet spanned two floors, with fashion and household items such as bedding and lighting goods that were introduced from the UK. However the brand was not well-known to households, as compared to other UK brands such as Marks & Spencer. According to the 1997 Hutchison Annual Report, they also admitted the business was disappointing. BHS was closed after around two years of operation.
Before Whampoa station opens, the means of transportation in the area are limited. In addition to introducing various anchor tenants, the developer also came up with different ideas to attract the crowd.
In the 90s, the developer installed an indoor ice skating rink in Treasure World and an indoor water fountain spanning across two floors in Home World, aiming to attract the crowds.
The water fountain was very fancy and it resembled the ones outside the casinos in Las Vegas. Crowds could watch the performance through the railings on the ground floor.
However, it is believed that maintaining the ice skating rink and water fountain in the long run is financially infeasible. The ice skating rink is now replaced by indoor amusement park, while the water fountain was replaced by supermarket TASTE, which is owned by the developer.
In 2018, The Whampoa bid farewell to its old name (Wonderful Worlds of Whampoa) after 20 years. Major refurbishment works were done, including the replacement of the giant signboard with the new mall logo, refurbishment of street railings and signposts.
Vacancy rate of the mall has increased gradually amid the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in decreased footfall. The developer is also accused of unwilling to reduce rents. With the introduction of Don Don Donki, could the cherry blossom again for the Whampoa?
