Huaihai Road, long synonymous with elegance, extravagance and fashion, will begin an ambitious face-lift project this year to bring back young shoppers who have left the street for flashier Nanjing Road West.

Luwan District government announced yesterday that Jones Lang LaSalle, a global real estate service and investment management company, and government-owned Shanghai Fuxing Enterprise (Group) Co. Ltd. have signed a deal to revamp the bustling artery.

"Huaihai Road, one of the city's landmarks, symbolizes elegance, but it has changed little since 1994, while other shopping streets are always changing," said Albert T.Y. Lau, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle Shanghai.

The first phase of the reconstruction, which involves about 300 meters from Maoming Road to Ruijin Road, is expected to be completed by the middle of the year.

"Huaihai Road will be repositioned as a young people's shopping mecca," said Siu Wing Chu, associate director of Jones Lang LaSalle Shanghai.

"We are not targeting the high-end market because it's been seized by Nanjing Road West, and young people are the largest con-sumption group - they like to spend, but aren't too sensitive about price," Chu said.

Stores that don't meet the street's new image will be moved by March to make way for international fashion houses to open new boutiques on the street by this fall, Chu said. He declined to name any possible new tenants.

"The whole face-lift project will last 10 years, and we aim to build (Huaihai Road) into the local answer to London's Oxford Street," said Lau.

The decision to rebuild Huaihai Road into an international fashion hub was spurred by a restoration plan announced for Nanjing Road last year.

Huangpu District government plans to pump more than 18 billion yuan (US$2.17 billion) into an ambitious face-lift project for the eastern part of Nanjing Road, the No. 1 shopping street in China.

It invited McKinsey & Co., the world's largest consulting company, to help spruce up the image of the city's avenue of consumption, aiming to turn the shopping street into a world-class commercial destina-tion like the Champs Elysee in Paris and Fifth Avenue in New York in about 10 years.

In addition, the Jing'an District government plans to invest 42 billion yuan to modernize Nanjing Road West. Hong Kong-based property giant Pacific Concord Holdings Ltd. is planning to build a global community with a combination of shopping, catering and entertaining there.

"Huaihai Road used to be the hub of high-end vogue brands," said an official with the Shanghai Commercial Commission, who asked to remain anonymous. "Looking for cheap general merchandise, people go to Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall, while they go to Nanjing Road West. for high-end brands."

"Many shopping streets are reshaping to be more fashionable, to be more in tune with the market, and Huaihai Road is a bit behind," he said. "How to keep the charm, how to retain the customers on Huaihai Road is a new challenge."

The shaping of today's Huaihai Road began in 1900, with a westward expansion of the former French Concession in old Shanghai. During that century, the road's name changed six times, giving it such monikers as Avenue Paul Brunat, in honor of the man elected president of Shanghai's French Municipal Council six times.

The current name commemorates the Huaihai Campaign, a decisive battle in which the People's Liberation Army turned the tide of the Chinese civil war (1945-1949) in their favor, going on to the victory to liberate the whole country.

( eastday.com January 09,2002)