Sat, Mar 06, 2010 page12

• Ice shop’s death may hit Yong Kang property prices

  • By Weiyi Lim / BLOOMBERG
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  Retail property prices along Taipei’s Yong Kang Street, a food strip recommended by the New York Times in 2008, may fall after Ice Monster (冰館), a stall known for its mango shaved ice desert, closed, said Sinyi Realty Co (信義房屋), the nation’s biggest real-estate brokerage.

  Taipei-based Next Magazine reported last month that the owners of Ice Monster had closed the store, which the New York Times included in a list of 13 places to visit in the city if you had 36 hours. The owner of Ice Monster, Frank Lo (羅同邑), didn’t reply to e-mailed queries and his number wasn’t listed.

  “It is a landmark of the food street, so prices are bound to fall after the closure,” Stanley Su (蘇啟榮), a Taipei-based senior researcher at Sinyi, said by telephone.

  He declined to say how much he thought prices would drop.

  Retail space on the street, which is as long as about 10 to 15 New York City blocks, is worth about NT$1.5 million (US$47,000) to NT$2 million per ping (3.3m²), or US$1,700 per square foot, Su said. This is on par with other “reputable” streets in Taipei, he said.

  “Ice Monster’s closure has symbolic significance to the street,” said Guan Xing-ing, who manages NT$300 million for Fubon Global Reit Fund at Fubon Securities Investment Trust Co (富邦投信). “There are two landmarks on the street: Ice Monster and Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐). The shutting down of Ice Monster will definitely reduce the crowd and then subsequently lower property prices in the area.”

  Sales have dropped by 30 percent at the female accessory store next to Ice Monster, said Liu Hsiu-min, 25, a store assistant. Karen Li, 46, a shop helper at a footwear store diagonally across from the former desert shop, said the street was not as busy as before.

  “The crowd has gone down by half,” said Li, who has been working in the shop for 10 years. “There are hardly any tourists now.”

  Ding Lirong, 29, a Singaporean housewife who visits Taiwan at least once a year, said she used to “make it a point” to visit Yong Kang Street for Ice Monster’s deserts. Now, there’s “no such compulsion after the Ice Monster died.”

  Ice Monster was just one of the many unique features of the street, said Wayne Liu(劉喜臨), a spokesman for the Tourism Bureau in Taipei.

  “There are also other great eating places including Din Tai Fung; I won’t be too worried,” Liu said by telephone.

  Din Tai Fung, voted by the New York Times as one of the top 10 restaurants in the world, sells steamed dumplings around Asia, including China, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. The branch on Yong Kang Street is its flagship store.

  Ice Monster started operations in 1995, its Web site says.

  The store, which boasted a ­mustache-clad yellow cube as its mascot, sold deserts, including fresh fruit mix, mango and custard, fresh mango jelly ice, and mandarin orange with lemon sorbet.
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