My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 801 The ocean is also a place where the new waves push the old ones forward.

Hong Kong has nurtured so many real estate tycoons, and Hong Kong Island and Kowloon are filled with so many high-rise buildings.

If we're talking about the largest single commercial real estate project, even if we consider the next three or four decades, it will still be Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui.

In the 1970s, they spent HK$21 billion to buy the Kowloon Pier from a foreign firm with a 999-year lease, and then began to renovate the 700-meter-long old pier from the late 1970s.

It has taken nearly ten years to complete two hotels, four office buildings, two super shopping malls and an aquarium.

It cost nearly 10 billion yuan and covers an area of ​​400,000 to 500,000 square meters, and it is not yet fully completed.

It already generates billions in retail sales and around a billion in rental income annually.

It was based on this idea that Lao Heng painstakingly bought the adjacent Yau Ma Tei port area, which is 1,500 meters long!
However, Kowloon Pier is located on the tip of Tsim Sha Tsui facing Hong Kong Island, while Yau Ma Tei Pier is a kilometer away.

In many small county towns, the bustling areas are only a couple hundred meters long, and some towns are less than a kilometer long.

Therefore, even with Hong Kong's prosperity and popularity, it is difficult to extend from Tsim Sha Tsui to Yau Ma Tei Pier.

Wei Dong, however, took a unique approach and used basketball to generate buzz.

The key is that everything he said came true!
"This Black basketball star is really effective; my son keeps saying he wants to go watch him train and play..."

"I never imagined that people in Hong Kong would be so enthusiastic about basketball. All the newspapers, magazines, and television are talking about it. But how do you make a profit?"

"Yeah, his fees must be expensive. There are so many people involved in basketball in Hong Kong. If it were cheap, they would have done it this way long ago. How would you break even?"

Let Weidong see Lao Heng among them.

They exchanged glances and both felt it was okay to release this news: "Old Heng is the best. He voluntarily handed over the dock warehouse to me to turn into a basketball court. His aim is to hype up the land, just like how Uncle De hyped up that land when he built the amusement park."

Old Heng said calmly, "Yes, I hope to invest HK$2 billion in the first phase to start the construction of the waterfront sports city, and promote this real estate around sports products and sports culture industries. Now it depends on how Pete can keep this momentum going."

The dozen or so wealthy Hong Kong businessmen were all astonished.

Those present here are basically all involved in the Yuepeng Expressway project, and even the funds raised by China Merchants Investment Bank came from them.

He immediately realized: "Do you need capital investment? I can participate."

"Like Harbour City, it'll be a hotel, office building, and shopping mall, but much larger. It'll definitely include luxury apartments and residential complexes. I can develop that project."

"But the key is how Pete can maintain this basketball fever, otherwise it may cool down in a year or two."

Everyone present was a business expert, and they could easily see that Wei Dong was the driving force behind the high value of this real estate.

Wei Dong didn't even have a chance to speak with Lao Heng alone: ​​"I want to independently invest in building this basketball arena, a large venue with a capacity of nearly 20,000 people. In the future, in addition to ensuring high-level basketball games, it can also host ice hockey, volleyball, boxing, and various concerts. My idea is to maintain this gathering of tens of thousands of people every few days, which will naturally drive the development of surrounding businesses, especially restaurants..."

He told Lao Fang in Pengzhen that the wedding would definitely attract wealthy people to come and discuss how to profit from the basketball craze.

So I made preparations and took out several photos of NBA basketball arenas that I had taken at Citibank.

Even though the NBA is still the least competitive of the four major commercial sports leagues, there are still various disparities in wealth among NBA teams.

But even beggars in the US back then were more extravagant than people elsewhere.

The stadium is magnificent, beautifully designed, and equipped with advanced facilities. It absolutely surpasses the Hung Hom Stadium, which was only completed a few years ago and is already the best and largest stadium in Hong Kong.

Everyone couldn't help but let out a collective "ha!"

Wei Dong brought Chow Yun-fat along as a translator.

Even though most of these veteran Hong Kong businessmen could understand Mandarin, Wei Dong still managed to bring Chow Yun-fat into the capital circle.

Give him plenty of opportunities to interact with influential people.

It worked wonders. Just by looking at the popular actor Pony Ma next to them, everyone could tell: "If there are regular events featuring movie stars, singers, and sports stars, the crowds will definitely be guaranteed!"

In fact, Yau Ma Tei Ferry Pier is about one kilometer away from the traditional bustling and prosperous old town areas such as Temple Street and Mong Kok.

The key is to have a selling point or gimmick that can continuously attract people.

With a base of several million visitors annually, it's unlikely to be too bad.

So, when asked why Wei Dong wanted to buy a luxury home in Hong Kong and invest in this kind of project, Lao Heng laughed heartily and said, "It's settled! I'll immediately apply to the Housing Department for the entire project and hire a renowned design firm to design it!"

Because they let Wei Dong come like a dragon crossing the river to pull off one heist, and then leave no matter what he got.

If this project continues to fizzle out, it will be a failure of tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in investment.

Who will take responsibility for this?

Only by investing heavily himself could he ensure that more people would believe in the long-term prosperity of the business, rather than just its short-term gains. Wei Dong then took the opportunity to show off a little: "Oh, I have designers for the stadium. I specifically sent a group of people to Washington State University to study. In the future, these people will be great helpers for Mingzai and me in real estate development in mainland China. Famous firms and renowned designers—they're all the same. If it's just one or two buildings, then you do need these kinds of people to make a good impression. But if it's hundreds or thousands of real estate buildings, the expenditure is too great. We can just create a few designs and reuse them across the country."

For the past few decades, the main focus of development has been in Hong Kong. Occasionally, Hong Kong real estate developers would venture into Southeast Asia and the Right Bank to undertake some projects. How many of them will have an epiphany at this moment depends on their fate.

Since they can develop real estate in Jiangzhou and Shanghai, and can expand to dozens of provinces and hundreds of larger cities across the country in the future, the future of their real estate business is simply limitless.

In short, everyone expressed their desire to get a share in Lao Heng's Seaside Sports City project, even if it was just a symbolic percentage.

Only by being bound to this giant ship can we weather the storm together in the next moment of development.

Old Heng must have estimated that the total investment would exceed HK$10 billion, and his HK$2 billion investment was just the starting point.

Now, he's saying "yes" repeatedly, a far cry from his previous behavior of begging for investment and cooperation; the power dynamic has completely reversed.

Therefore, the reward he offered to Wei Dong was extremely impressive: "Then I'll join the basketball arena as a shareholder with the land price, five percent is fine, right?"

The construction cost of Hung Hom a few years ago was over HK$100 million.

Making Weidong bigger and better would easily double its size.

But it should be able to be done within 300 to 500 million, and the land of this stadium is worth more than 100 million, or even more than 300 to 500 million, which can account for more than half of the total cost of the stadium.

But he only asked for five percent in exchange for the sports industry he was promoting to serve as an internal combustion engine indefinitely!
Wei Dong bowed his hands in gratitude, knowing that the land would cost at least several billion yuan, with the basketball stadium occupying about one-tenth of the area, and it would also involve land reclamation.

So, in return, I said, "I went to the Basketball Association the day before yesterday and basically reached an agreement with them to add two of my top Citizens players to the HK team as BDTC players. They will go to the Asian Championship in October to try to qualify for the Olympics and make a name for HK basketball. The Basketball Association promised me that they would help me apply to the Hong Kong government for approval of the stadium application and give them a small share of the shares so they can set up an office."

Old Heng's loud laughter at this moment completely overshadowed the main event.

The others hurriedly finalized the deal, grabbing any piece of paper and signing it, declaring their investments of 500 million or 1 billion.

Just like the highway project last time, there's a strong culture of cooperation among people from Chaoshan, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang.

If you rush to write now, you might miss your chance later.

As expected, Old Heng reached out and took the paper while laughing wildly, not giving anyone a chance to be slow.

Because everyone had never really paid any attention to the basketball association, which had little presence, but they all understood that if such a semi-official organization spoke up for this special project, approval was practically a done deal.

This reduces significant investment risks and underlying operating costs.

If one has exceptional abilities, they might even be able to lobby the Hong Kong government to invest public funds.

That stuff... is much more cost-effective than private lending.

The Hong Kong government is extremely wealthy right now, and it's trying its best to spend all that money so it won't leave any for ten years from now.

Everyone couldn't help but cheer and jeer!
After all, no matter how much Wei Dong earns, it's all technical income. Nobody expected that developing basketball, especially high-level basketball, would drive the entire situation.

This is what he deserves to earn.

Old Heng is simply taking advantage of acquiring the land and now he's picking up money, making a fortune.

A plot of land that's been hyped up is like digging for gold.

Wei Dong's tactics could work in any other place!
Even if it's not as good as Yau Ma Tei, as long as you can speculate from low to high, you'll make a fortune.

We're so angry we need to get a few more bottles of XO and get that old man, Heng, drunk!
For a moment, the table that was originally in the second row, where Wei Dong and Fa Ge were seated as the groom's family members, was in chaos.

The bride and groom were busy toasting relatives and friends from the bride's family and didn't have time to come over.

Uncle De, who was sitting at the head table next to the bride, was not mingling with the wealthy old men as usual because of his daughter's wedding. He leaned on the back of his chair and came over to ask what was going on.

He had already blurted out an explanation: "Old Heng and Ah Tung have joined forces to transform the Yau Ma Tei bulk cargo terminal into a waterfront sports city. The Basketball Association has agreed to submit an application to the Hong Kong government for approval. Everyone wants to participate in the investment of over 10 billion!"

Uncle De is second only to Lao Heng in terms of business partners. His acceptance and recognition of Chi Shiming may be a gamble on Wei Dong's faction.

But it's unclear whether Jenny's second brother's actions were an instruction from him to put Chi Shih-ming in check, or whether he could no longer contain his son's ambitions.

In short, at that moment, he glanced back at his son, who was definitely not someone he could get involved in, and his son, who seemed to be kept out of the circle by these wealthy people, actually swayed and fell down!

Good heavens, I was surrounded by pampered millionaires, and I almost dodged them in fright.

Wei Dong, who frequently plays basketball, jumped up quickly to support and lay flat on his back: "Stroke! Stroke! Get an ambulance right away..."

But everyone saw that Uncle De, whose mouth was already a little crooked, managed to say something to Rang Weidong.

Wei Dong leaned down and whispered in his ear in response.

(End of this chapter)