Jinbao Street is a premier luxury shopping street in Beijing, like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. In its two-block stretch there are three 4 or 5-star hotels and Bentley, Ferrari, Maserati and Mercedes dealerships. In my return this time, I found an Aston-Martin dealership in the lobby of my hotel, The Regent.
Jinbao (translated as “golden treasure”) Street is the best-known destination for Beijing’s wealthiest shoppers.
Seven years ago, I reported on a struggling three-year-old, 40,000 square meter (430,000 square foot) luxury mall known as Jinbao Place which stood largely vacant on this otherwise busy street. Above the second floor in this seven-stories-above-grade mall, almost all the space was vacant. The seventh floor, the restaurant floor, had only a roast duck restaurant.
At that time, I thought the problem was that most luxury retailers had already saturated the Dongdan district that contains Jinbao Street and the famed Wangfujing pedestrian mall, anchored by the newly renovated Beijing APM mall, formerly known as the Sun Dong An plaza. There seemed to be an Omega watch store on almost every block.
What a difference seven years makes, though. I found the Jinbao Place mall to be at stabilized occupancy. I counted three vacancies and a good number of shoppers. This time I dined at a Japanese restaurant, noticing that their lobster dinner was priced at 2500 yuan (about $350).
The famed Wangfujing pedestrian mall, a few blocks west, was at full occupancy, as was the APM mall. This location seems to be at the epicenter of Beijing wealth. The only thing I can witness in several visits to Beijing is its continuing prosperity.
So I was wrong about this one in 2011.