The second, Provident Centre, has a narrow promenade that is legally open to the public but which can only be accessed by two dark sunken passages underneath the apartment complex. It is also a dead end on both sides. 

Further east is North Point’s only real section of accessible waterfront, a 120m long promenade located between the passenger ferry pier and Harbour North (the new development on the site of the former North Point Estate).

Afterwards, you must turn inland past the entrance to the vehicular ferry pier, two office/industrial buildings, a petrol station, the ICAC headquarters, a fireboat station, the North Point Government Offices, and a police station. Interspersed throughout are a few small, isolated parks that allow you to briefly glimpse the water. Finally, at Hoi Yu Street, you can reach Quarry Bay Promenade and continue your journey to Shau Kei Wan.

Large sections of North Point’s waterfront are essentially privatised. Most of the rest is occupied by government facilities, including marine uses that are hard to relocate. The government’s solution, currently under construction, is a HK$1.18 billion boardwalk over the water, bypassing all of these obstacles. 

How did North Point’s waterfront become so inaccessible in the first place? To answer this question, we need to look back to North Point’s industrial origins, and its transformation by one particularly ambitious developer, Li Ka-shing. 

An industrial waterfront transformed

In the early to mid–20th Century, North Point was an industrial district. Its deep waters made it an ideal place for ships to dock, so factories and warehouses were built on its coastline. Hong Kong Electric opened North Point Power Station in 1919, expanding it in the 1950s and 60s to meet growing demand. The government also located several storage depots for equipment, furniture and construction materials on the waterfront. The only publicly accessible part was a bus terminus and a simple concrete path in front of North Point Estate, which was built opposite the ferry pier in 1957. 

In 1964, 36 year-old plastics manufacturer Li Ka-shing opened the Cheung Kong Plastics Factory at 661 King’s Road, near the North Point Funeral Home. Looking around, he saw a rapidly transforming district, and must have realized that a great deal of land would become available very soon. 

Due to the impact of air pollution on North Point’s growing residential population, Hong Electric relocated to a new plant in Ap Lei Chau in 1968. The North Point Power Station was retained as an infrequently-used back-up facility until 1978, but Hong Kong Electric eventually sought out business partners to redevelop the site. 

Next door to the power station was the North Point Wharves, owned by China Provident Co. (which was acquired by Hutchinson Whampoa in the 1970s). They too were on their way out. In the late 1960s, the government had decided to develop a modern container terminal at Kwai Chung, and in 1974, China Provident decided to relocate. 

The biggest landlord

In 1978, the Town Planning Board granted Hutchinson Whampoa approval to redevelop the North Point Wharves into the Provident Centre, consisting of 17 blocks of 25-storey residential towers on top of a shopping centre. 

One year later, Li Ka-shing made his move. In the most famous corporate takeover in Hong Kong business history, Li’s Cheung Kong Holdings bought a controlling stake in the heavily indebted Hutchinson Whampoa from HSBC, which had rescued it several years before. This made Li the first ethnic Chinese business person to acquire control of one the old British trading hongs which had dominated Hong Kong’s colonial-era economy. 

In 1980, he inked a deal with Hong Kong Electric, forming a joint venture that gave Cheung Kong a 30% stake in the redevelopment of the North Point Power Station into City Garden, a mixed use development consisting of fourteen 28-storey residential towers, a shopping mall, and a hotel. Within the space of two years, Li Ka-shing had become the biggest landlord on the North Point waterfront. Provident Garden was completed in 1985 followed by City Garden in 1986. 

In the following years, Cheung Kong and Hutchinson Whampoa acquired even more nearby waterfront property. In 2009, the Harbour Grand Hong Kong Hotel was completed on the site of a former godown on King Wah Street. In 2011, Cheung Kong bought the site of the old government storage yard (used as the Oil Street Artists’ Village in the late 1990s) to build a residential complex, Harbour Glory. Today, about 25% of the length of North Point’s waterfront from Hing Fat Street to Hoi Yu Street was developed by Li Ka-shing’s business empire. 

Yet this is not the full story. Even if the land is privately owned, the government could have stepped in to ensure public access to the waterfront. In fact, it almost did. The story of how the government missed this huge opportunity—and what it is doing to fix its mistakes—will be covered in the second part of this series, “Part 2: The Making of North Point’s Oddly Disjointed Waterfront”. 

Sources:

Ho Puay-peng et al., “Heritage Impact Assessment for Conversion of the Former Clubhouse of Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club at 12 Oil Street, North Point into a Community and Public Art Centre – Artspace @ Oil Street—Vol. 1, Baseline Study”, September 2011, Architectural Services Department and Leisure and Cultural Services Department, HKSAR Government .

Hugh Farmer, “North Point Power Station”, The Industrial History of Hong Kong Group, 9 January 2023.

York Lo, “The Forgotten Jewish-American Tycoons behind the HK Plastic Flowers Industry”, The Industrial History of Hong Kong Group, 15 June 2023.

York Lo, “The Life and Family of S.M. Churn (張公勇, 1887-1959) of China Provident, Union Trading and Vibro”, The Industrial History of Hong Kong Group, 30 August 2021. 

S.H. Goo, “Study Report on History of Company Incorporation in Hong Kong,” , July 2013, Hong Kong Companies Registry, HKSAR Government.

Lau Chi-pang, “Chapter 7.1: The Container Terminals”, History of the Port and Marine Department, date unknown, Marine Department HKSAR Government.

〈公司欲邀地產商展電氣道地皮，投資估計十億元〉 (“Company seeks real estate developers to develop Electric Road site, investment estimated at $1 billion”), Kung Sheung Evening News, 18 January 1978.

〈港燈長實達成協議合組地產發展公司〉 (“Hong Kong Electric and Cheung Kong Holdings sign agreement to form joint development company”), Ta Kung Pao, 21 November 1980.

〈北角聯益貨倉擬建貨櫃碼頭〉(“China Provident plans to build cargo pier”), Ta Kung Pao, 1 April 1974.

Recreation and Amenities Select Committee of The Urban Council , “Dedicated Open Space at Wharf Road, North Point”, Ref. : USD P 42/441/78, 8 June 1979.