The pile foundation work of the government’s ongoing project of constructing an office building on the site where the now-defunct Lotus Flower checkpoint was located has been completed, the Public Works Bureau (DSOP) has announced.
The project in Cotai, which started in October last year, is being carried out in three phases, namely the building’s pile foundation work, basement and podium, and superstructure.
The government launched a public tender in May last year for the project’s pile foundation work. A total of 18 construction companies had submitted their bids, which were unsealed by DSOP officials in July last year.
The quotations for the project’s pile foundation work proposed by the 18 bidders ranged from 367 million to 428 million patacas.
After assessing the 18 bids, DSOP officials chose local outfit Top Builders International Company Limited, which proposed a construction cost of 403 million patacas, as the winning bidder, after which the building’s pile foundation work got off the ground in October last year.
The Public Works Bureau announced on its website on Sunday that the building’s pile foundation work has now been completed.
According to the DSOP website, the new building will have 24 storeys plus a three-floor basement. The tower will be primarily earmarked for office spaces, commercial facilities and a car park.
According to the website, the site where the office building will be located covers about 8,204 square metres. The building will have a gross floor area of about 103,000 square metres.
The Lotus Flower checkpoint building was demolished after the Macau-Zhuhai joint border checkpoint on Hengqin island came into service in August 2020. A part of the area will be used as the Cotai-side station of the ongoing Light Rail Transit (LRT) Cotai-Hengqin section project, which will link the area of the former Lotus Flower checkpoint with the Hengqin checkpoint. The two-station LRT Cotai-Hengqin section project got off the ground in March 2021.
In addition, according to the website, the new office building’s podium will also be used as a platform connecting the LRT Taipa section’s Lotus station and its adjacent Cotai-side station of the future LRT Hengqin section. The platform will make it more convenient for LRT passengers to transfer between the Taipa and Hengqin sections, the website said.
Lotus Checkpoint station on the LRT Taipa section was renamed Lotus station last month. The current LRT Taipa network, which also includes Cotai, started operating in December 2019.
The new office tower project is officially known as Multifunctional Building on Estrada Flor de Lótus in Cotai.
Running past the area of the former Lotus Flower checkpoint, Estrada Flor de Lótus is a 2,200-metre-long road connecting the west Cotai waterfront and an area near the Macau East Asian Games Dome and the Lisboeta Macau resort in east Cotai.
The government has not yet launched a public tender for the project’s second phase i.e., the new office building’s basement and podium work.
According to the DSOP website, the LRT Cotai-Hengqin section project is now scheduled to be completed in November next year.
This handout photo taken from the Public Works Bureau’s (DSOP) website yesterday shows the construction site of the office tower project in Cotai last month, where the now-defunct Lotus Flower checkpoint was located.
