Citi Tower, Hong Kong Achieves Sustainability and Wellbeing First

Citigroup’s new One Bay East office, located in the heart of the Kowloon financial district, has become Hong Kong’s first LEED Platinum and WELL Silver Pre-Certified space.

Since first advising the bank on the acquisition of the tower for a record $700 million in 2014, CBRE have provided project and change management at the tower to deliver the most highly certified building in Hong Kong.

A Tour of the Tower

Approximately 80 people recently visited the new office to hear how Citi delivered the project; the first to secure WELL Building Standard Silver Precertification and LEED Platinum certification. The presentation was followed by a tour of the space.

Head of Citi Realty Services in Hong Kong, Duncan Macintyre, along with Citi’s Project Director, David Armitage, presented the reasons for Citi’s decision to undertake WELL Certification in addition to LEED certification, the challenges that they encountered, the various lessons learned noted in retrospect and validation of the benefits achieved to support their decision. Many of the challenges were overcome as a result of Citi owning the building. Attendees were able to get a more insightful perspective with a tour of the office including the client facing areas, employee work spaces as well as the gymnasium and the chance to discuss with other professionals over drinks and food from their WELL certified caterers afterwards.

About the Project

This project is quite unlike anything Citigroup has produced before. The 350,000 SQF space includes retail, food and beverage, leisure facilities, conferencing and 18 floors of agile working corporate offices. The space also integrates an impressive fitness centre, consisting of three exercise zones, which can accommodate up to 78 employees at one time.

The project has also pursued RESET; an air quality standard which assesses the health performance of indoor spaces in real-time. Installed monitors gather detailed air quality data at continuous 30-second intervals throughout the building. As air quality in Hong Kong can often be a challenge, this system allows us to accurately understand the specific factors that affect air quality within the space.

Hong Kong’s first LEED Platinum and WELL Pre-Certified fit-out works was managed by CBRE from inception to handover. CBRE worked through the site search, feasibility, and transaction management of the owner-occupied tower at One Bay East; the largest ever en-bloc office transaction in Hong Kong. We further provided project and change management, through to move coordination and handover. In doing so the team picked up the RICS CRS Team of the Year Award for 2017, whilst delivering the most highly certified building in Hong Kong to date.