Australian retirement village veteran, Roger Kwok, has been rewarded for his patience. He has broken into the Chinese seniors accommodation market with a 50/50 joint venture to build a 2,800 to 3,000 unit retirement village, with residential aged care, childcare and medical centre.
His Arcadia Group will join the major private developer Longhei who is contributing the land and will be the builder. Arcadia will contribute the business model and management. They will share the profit 50/50.
The location is in the second tier coastal city Qingdao, 650kl southeast of Beijing. It has a population of 9 million and is one of Chinas fastest growing cities. Roger says its geography and character is similar to our Gold Coast. It was named China's most liveable city by the Chinese Institute of City Competitiveness in 2009.
The project will be called Qingdao Arcadia. Stage One covers 7 hectares of the 22 hectare site and will deliver 600-700 units. Construction will commence this year.
The joint venture was signed on 10 June, an auspicious Chinese date reports Roger. Qingdao is also an auspicious city. Its name is also spelled Tsingtao which is Chinas most famous beer. The Germans grabbed the city port in 1898 and held it until 1914, establishing the brewery, now Chinas second largest.
Kwok has been the quiet achiever in the village sector, post the GFC. He has expanded from his base of six WA villages over to Melbourne where he has purchased the two prestige Rylands Kew and Hawthorn villages from Stockland plus the greenfield Hidden Valley development 45 minutes north of Melbourne. This has over 500 retirement village units, 50 resort town houses and the redevelopment of the existing Golf & Country Club to be known as Hidden Valley Resort commencing staged development.
A Malay Chinese by birth, Roger has been developing his international network for the past seven years. His first success was attracting Malaysian funding to Hidden Valley.
He is now seeking Australian executives to work on his Chinese project. Well known village veteran Angus Kukura is Group General Manager and leads the Australian operations with Genell Dunn, Victorian Regional Manager Sales and Marketing.