My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 657 The difference between people is greater than the difference between people and dogs.

But the rent cannot be reduced.

State-owned restaurants would normally have no rental income; they were lucky if they didn't lose money to support their employees, as they were located in a prime location like the Bund.

Moreover, these historical buildings require a considerable amount of money to maintain every year.

There were clear forms in the city, printed with needles. When they were taken out to look at them, Wei Dong joked that the ink was getting lighter and lighter, and asked if they had cut corners.

Wei Dong quickly said he would look into it, as the printer was a product of the Jinling factory, and the ink ribbon was also produced there.

Then I found out that the state-run restaurant is 12,000 square meters.

The city government gritted its teeth and quoted a monthly rent of 100 yuan per square meter plus a 10% cut of the turnover, and then demanded that the rent increase year by year according to the price index!

Wei Dong also wanted to tell the joke about using beef noodles to measure an index.

The hotel tycoon said, "Okay, then we'll rent it at this price, but I hope that after signing a long-term investment agreement with a minimum term of 30 years, we can also lease or sell the remaining land to them."

Damn it, Wei Dong and the people in Shanghai quickly exchanged glances, did they lower their voices?!
Fortunately, there is also a revenue sharing arrangement, which provides a base of about 15 million per year.

Conversely, wouldn't it be necessary to have hundreds of millions in revenue just to survive?
How many important people could live in such a building?

And if you're squeezed in, are you still considered a VIP?

As a result, Mr. Awald hoped to rent this five- or six-story building, covering 12,000 square meters, and then operate it like a traditional courtyard house in a hutong (traditional alleyway).

A new building will be constructed later.

However, it's the opposite here.

Using the classic buildings along the Bund as a facade, they serve various charming social functions such as lobbies, restaurants, and coffee bars, and are used as high-end venues for cocktail parties, art exhibitions, business meetings, and more.

At the same time, the land behind the building will be acquired to construct a modern hotel tower.

This made Wei Dong realize that he could only learn by watching the actions of professional experts.

The courtyard houses in the hutongs are built with newly constructed buildings as the main structure, and then VIP suites for top-tier guests are the only ones that are meticulously decorated.

The use of a traditional courtyard house elevated the overall sophistication of the hotel.

Those three small courtyard houses side by side were actually going to be demolished and completely rebuilt. They even had to dig up the ground to build an underground garage and improve the ground waterproofing system.

Even the original bricks and tiles are used as much as possible to preserve that sense of history, even though at its core it is already a modern bungalow made of reinforced concrete.

A complete overhaul of everything from water supply and drainage to air conditioning systems.

If it weren't for the need to learn something, Wei Dong would never have been willing to spend this money.

Of course, he paid for it. In this alley hotel, excluding the land price, all construction and decoration costs belong to him, and the property belongs entirely to him. Wanmade Hotel Group holds intangible assets.

This section features classic Bund architecture as its main element, with the building behind it housing the guest rooms.

It's a bit like a large hospital where the outpatient department is the main battleground, while the inpatient building at the back is mainly for lying down.

Wanmad Hotel Group seems to dislike owning properties, preferring to lease them out and have local partners handle the real estate themselves.

Moreover, their operational approach is similar to that of Pingjing: "You, Pete, will fix the building, and we'll take care of all the interior decoration."

From the five- or six-story classical building to the twenty-story hotel building behind it, we had to control every detail of the interior and exterior decoration.

After all, how complicated can the decoration of a hutong courtyard house be?

We need to hire designers to come up with a solution that combines cultural charm with modern high-end features.

As for the domed buildings of classical European and American architecture like those on the Bund, European and American hotel groups know exactly how to create an interior ambiance; we'll do it ourselves.

Every carving, every inch of railing, from chandeliers and pillars to murals, every detail must be meticulously crafted.

Ultimately, this building will be reborn while preserving its value as a classical cultural relic.

This kind of expert renovation, at the level of cultural relic restoration, is very expensive.

This made Wei Dong and the city officials realize that the renovation and reconstruction cost of one hundred million US dollars did not include the construction of the twenty-plus-story building behind it!
Each step should be completed gradually over three to five years.

In fact, just like when Wei Dong first took a close look at Building No. 5, behind the glamorous facade of these international architectural complexes, there were a lot of dilapidated and messy old buildings.

In addition to the lack of continuous investment in construction and maintenance after the public-private partnership, a number of illegal buildings were added later.

Furthermore, when these buildings were constructed around the time of the Republic of China era, even the overall economy of Shanghai and the Bund had not yet achieved widespread prosperity, so the peripheral areas could not be adequately developed.
Therefore, there are many dilapidated ruins and broken walls now.

Mr. Awald's request was to acquire the entire block behind the building and construct a large building with a garden and open-air café between the two floors.

These all fall within their scope of modification.

I saw the hotel group's preliminary renovation plan for the hutong courtyard houses on the plane.

Wei Dong doesn't even need to think to guess that the old man will definitely use this trick again!

The old buildings in front, only five or six stories high, only had their surface decorations changed, while the modern hotel towers behind them would definitely have underground parking garages. The garden in the middle would also inevitably have to be excavated three feet deep to create underground parking garages, garden corridors, and other divisions. In fact, it's a large area of ​​buildings in front and behind. A brand-new world squeezed among the dazzling array of buildings on the Bund.

Even with Wei Dong's forty years of experience, he never imagined he would dare to make such a big fuss about the buildings around the Bund.

After renting Building No. 5, they only replaced the elevator with one they had custom-made. The rest of the building was decorated and repaired entirely by Qin Zhiming, and they didn't dare to alter a single brick or tile.

The window frames and windows were restored to their original state as much as possible, without changing their design.

This is a cultural relic.

The hotel tycoon made sweeping changes, almost like giving a middle-aged woman cosmetic surgery to turn her into an eighteen-year-old girl.

After a brief discussion in the city, it was decided that only Weidong was capable of handling this kind of task: "The cultural relics unit will be stationed here to supervise. You are responsible for ensuring that the demolition and resettlement work in the area behind is done properly. Indeed, we must make this Wanmad Hotel a benchmark in Shanghai and even East Asia, and make it famous worldwide!"

This is the difference between Shanghai and Jiangzhou.

Subconsciously, we all look at the whole world.

Wei Dong scratched his head: "Please rest assured about the resettlement and demolition work. I was just dragged along by this guy in Beijing and forced to run a high-end hotel. Just consider it learning from him. I need to sell more products to have the funds to keep up."

There was absolutely no sense of smugness or pride in me managing a project worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

So the people from Shanghai smiled and patted him on the shoulder like they were looking at their own son: "People from Shanghai value 'keeping a low profile,' meaning they don't show off, focus on doing things, and build brilliance with steadiness and composure. If you can maintain this low-key and pragmatic style, and further enhance your active thinking and innovative ability, you will definitely be able to do things well."

That's a very high rating.

People from Shanghai were very proud of themselves back then.

Wei Dong wondered if he could get away with not keeping a low profile.

I quickly nodded to accept the job, so I can't leave for a while.

We need to follow Mr. Awald's ideas to carry out the demolition and resettlement, construction and civil engineering preparations; just signing the contracts alone will take several days.

Ultimately, a 20-year lease was signed, with the rent terms to be renegotiated every five years. The lease will be renewed upon expiration, and Wanmad Hotel Group has the right of first refusal to renew the lease under the same conditions.

Then, in the Shanghai area, they immediately started teaching the property management of three budget hotels.

Such a huge city deserves to test the waters with three companies first.

Because Shanghai's architectural foundation far surpasses that of Beijing, and its design concepts are far superior, these three hotels can be renovated and decorated immediately, far ahead of Beijing.

Mr. Awald even enthusiastically proposed that the group should operate these three hotels of different levels: a budget hotel, an economy hotel, and a mid-range hotel.

It can be considered as the flagship model store of "Super 6 Hotels", "Bai Mao Hotels" and "Hao De Hotels" in Greater China.

The more than 50 million yuan in cash transferred from the Cherokee joint venture partner arrived immediately.

Seeing the exact amount, Wei Dong knew that the hotel group had probably paid Chrysler ten million US dollars in North America.

In reality, the foreign partner in the joint venture has received far more funds than this in the past two or three years; it's just that they couldn't take it with them.

Just by being a minority shareholder for a year, Wei Dong received pre-tax dividends of approximately 1.7 million yuan!
Maintaining this income level, the company recouped its $2 million investment in less than ten years, even with restrictions preventing it from operating freely.

He dared not take it. He paid taxes first, and used the rest to offset previous expenses such as work clothes, monitoring facilities, and night markets. The remaining money was invested in the construction of factory dormitories.

Anyway, I'm not taking it with me.

Now that things are as they are, the foreign partner in the Pingqi joint venture hasn't "made" a lot of money from the mainland, which seems much more comfortable.

As for whether the actual investment was reduced, that's not true, and there was no such hotel investment.

Isn't that much easier to accept?

Wei Dong should primarily bear the relocation and resettlement costs for these three different buildings.

Therefore, the hotel continues to distribute dividends according to the joint venture's shareholding ratio.

After arranging these matters, leaving behind two managers, and while still summoning the relevant Citibank local team to come immediately, Mr. Avald couldn't wait to fly to the plateau with Dawa.

If it weren't for the immediate series of actions taken in Shanghai that made it reasonable for Wei Dong to accompany them, they would have had to wait until the hotel tycoon returned.

As expected, Qin Yuye followed suit and didn't go to work as a translator. Instead, she asked the foreign affairs department to arrange for two more people with good foreign language skills to join her from the foreign trade company.

All expenses can be reimbursed upon return.

After three or four days of hard work, Lao Geng had finally coordinated several major projects in Beijing and was rushing over with his team when three dusty figures carrying "cannonballs" and "brick boxes" arrived almost right after the Wanmade Hotel Group's professionals.

Liu Xiaoyong and his two companions, who had been sent by Wei Dong to Washington State to study architecture, returned with heavy luggage after a six-month training period.

Unlike most of their compatriots who would buy all sorts of things when they went abroad at this time, the three of them brought either architectural blueprints or books.

During their six months at Citibank, they saved all their US dollar subsidies and used the money to buy every professional book they could find to bring back to China.

Therefore, a person's fate is truly determined by their character.

(End of this chapter)