Developer finds major support for artful plans to rebuild victorian glass palace

Chinese real estate giant ZhongRong Group has unveiled a radical plan to regenerate London's famous Crystal Palace Park, home to the grand Victorian glass structure that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851.

With an investment of 500 million pounds ($806 million, 592 million euros), the project aims to build a replica of the 83,600-square-meter palace that was destroyed by fire in 1936, as well as develop the 70-hectare park.

The group's chairman, Ni Zhaoxing, 57, says he wants to turn the restored palace into an exhibition and trading center for fine arts. His proposals also include a central tree-lined boulevard in the park and a new cafe and visitor center.

"We want to restore Crystal Palace to its former glory, and we also want to provide a venue for art collectors from all over the world to showcase and trade their collections," says Ni, adding that some pieces from his private art collection would be displayed there.

He also has plans to build leisure and hospitality facilities in and around the park to make art collectors and tourists' stay more comfortable.

Ni, who is referred to by some as the "Chinese Buffett", having made it into the Forbes Chinese Billionaires List for the first time this year (ranking 76th with a fortune of $1.25 billion), says the regeneration idea arose from his love for the UK and London. His two daughters studied at the University of Bath and City University, London, and he regularly visited them.

"I love London in the same way I love my home country," he says. "I often visited the ruins of Crystal Palace Park and stood there thinking about how to restore this work to its previous glory. I often visited the British Museum, and thought about how to combine artwork and artistic construction.

"I want to invest in Crystal Palace Park because I want it to become the jewel of the world's art collection venues. I want the new Crystal Palace Park to become a work of art itself, both in its construction and its function."

Ni says he came up with the regeneration plan and contacted the London government a year ago.

ZhongRong has hired the British engineering consultancy Arup to draft the regeneration plans. Jerome Frost, director of Arup, says his team hopes to submit a planning application to the local council in a year's time. If approved, he expects construction to begin in the winter of 2015.

ZhongRong's restoration project has received strong support from the London mayor, Boris Johnson, and Stephen Carr, leader of the local council of Bromley, which looks after Crystal Palace Park.

"It's incredibly exciting that Mr Ni has come forward with a brilliant, original and simple vision, to recreate that palace in a 21st century version," says Johnson.

Regeneration of Crystal Palace Park has been discussed for some years, but numerous proposals had "failed to yield a way forward that is affordable to the taxpayer".

His office will give Ni's team "wholehearted support" taking the project forward, he says, making sure the local community is consulted, so the project can bring them optimum benefit.

"It is absolutely vital to engage with the local people, whom I believe will benefit so much from this idea," Johnson says.

The project is expected to create more than 2,000 jobs as well as attract wider investment to the local high streets.

The original Crystal Palace was designed by English architect Joseph Paxton. It was erected in central London's Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, and relocated to southeast London later.

In 2008, a master plan for regenerating Crystal Palace Park was drawn up by the London Development Agency. However, LDA was closed last year due to changes made to UK government structure, and the plan never turned into anything concrete (or glass).

While Ni has not revealed exact details of his plan, he stressed that his team has a good record of property development in China. ZhongRong was founded in 1992 and its notable projects include the Jasper Tower and Hengrui International Plaza in Shanghai.

Ni's interest in Crystal Palace comes at a time when Chinese property developers are becoming increasingly active in London's property market. In early July, China's insurance giant Ping An Insurance Group Co bought the freehold of the Lloyd's of London building for 260 million pounds.

In June, Dalian Wanda Group, the Chinese developer controlled by billionaire Wang Jianlin, announced it is investing 1 billion pounds in a London site to build Western Europe's tallest residential tower.

And in May, the Beijing developer ABP (China) Holdings Group Ltd signed an agreement with London officials to transform the 14-hectare site at Royal Albert Dock into the capital's third business district.

Perhaps different from the other projects, Ni seems to have placed his focus on the aesthetic possibilities of Crystal Park Palace's construction, as opposed to its ability to generate financial returns.

However, Ni told journalists that he expects the plan to succeed commercially. "Breaking even is just a matter of time. It may be sooner or later."

Ni's idea of a makeover for the park is different to Bromley Council's conservation plans, which aim more at preserving existing features for the enjoyment of tourists and local residents.

Andrew Rogers, a council spokesman, says the park is expensive to keep due to the need to maintain heritage-listed stone buildings on the site, structural remains of the 1936 fire, which give visitors an idea of Crystal Palace's historical magnificence.

"It's a lovely park if you just look at the outside," he says. "There are people having picnics, and people playing on the grass, and you many not think it needs any work done to it.

"But because it is a historic park, there are some ornate stone structures that need to be maintained. They are quite old and they crumble. So in the long term, they are time consuming and expensive to maintain."

The council was considering applying for grants to help with the preservation of heritage structures, but if a commercial developer takes over responsibility for redevelopment, some major changes may be proposed.

He says the council's role is to make sure that all plans submitted for planning permission ensure that local residents are consulted.

However, some local residents have already expressed doubts about proposals to develop the site. John Payne of the Crystal Palace Community Association told The Guardian newspaper that he is unimpressed with ZhongRong's plans.

"Here we go again," Payne said. "It's about the fifth proposal for a commercial shed on this site. Every time, we have fiercely battled these schemes, and even taken them to the European courts to stop them from happening.

"We are completely opposed to commercial building on public parkland - but this time it sounds like there's some serious money behind the proposal."

cecily.liu@chinadaily.com.cn

Ni Zhaoxing with London mayor Boris Johnson and Bromley Council leader Stephen Carr, prior to the press conference at the Crystal Palace Park. Xie Songxin / China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 10/11/2013 page21)