Dear Colleagues,
When I joined the university three years ago, we made clear our intention to provide at least some accommodation facilities for our undergraduate students.
The main purposes were to enrich the student learning experience at HKMU and to provide accommodation for incoming international exchange students. By so doing, we hope to expand the number of exchange partners for our students who wish to spend one semester or two in overseas universities.
Colleagues from our Finance Office examined over 120 properties and entered into several serious negotiations during the past two years.
On 22 May 2024, the University signed a Sale and Purchase Agreement (SPA) to acquire a hotel in Hung Hom. Upon fulfilling all the outstanding terms set out in the SPA, we plan to complete the acquisition and take over the premises in June 2024.
The hotel has 255 rooms, and based on the current configuration, can accommodate about 480 students. We intend to make modifications to the hotel to increase its capacity to benefit more students and create open spaces for student activities and social functions.
Considering the time required to redesign the facility and apply for permission to undertake the related building works, construction is not expected to start until the summer of 2025.
To avoid having the new hotel sitting idle for a year and wasting valuable resources, we intend to open the hotel for use when the new academic year starts in September this year. The plan is to do the design work during the first six to eight months, submit all applications for building works to relevant government departments, and then renovate the hotel once permissions for alteration works are granted.
This would mean that there will likely be a “gap year” (the 2025-26 academic year) when renovation work is being done to the hotel. We hope to reopen the facility before the start of the 2026-27 academic year.
A Special Team has been established in the Facilities Management Office to take this project forward. I hope to provide you with more updates in due course.
Paul LAM Kwan-sing
President
