Gloucester Building

On New Years Day 1926, a large portion of the old Hong Kong Hotel (the part on Des Voeux Road Central & Pedder Street corner) was completely gutted by fire. Hongkong Land purchased the site in 1928 for $1,375,000 and developed Gloucester Building which was completed in 1932, a few years later the Hotel section was fomally named Gloucester Hotel. Gloucester Building was the first mixed-use building in Central, on the lower two levels were shops with internal arcades. Offices occupied the middle two floors and a small hotel, the top five floors.  It was also the company's first new generation developments using reinforced concrete floor slabs and a structural steel frame on a foundation of driven piles. The building would be demolished in 1977 to make way for an even larger mixed use development in the 1980's, The Landmark.