Office space in Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong

Yau Ma Tei still trades the way it always traded. Nathan Road runs through the middle, and one block either side each street keeps its own business. Shanghai Street was the main road before Nathan Road existed and still sells hardware and kitchen steel. The Jade Market on Kansu Street holds about 400 registered stalls, and the wholesale fruit market on Waterloo Road is a century old and works at night.

The institutions are old too. Tin Hau Temple on Public Square Street dates from 1876. Kwong Wah Hospital, the first hospital on the Kowloon peninsula, opened in 1911. The Broadway Cinematheque beside the old Yau Ma Tei Theatre still shows films the multiplexes do not.

The office sits inside a hotel. Eaton House is part of Eaton HK at 380 Nathan Road, opened by Great Eagle on 1 November 1990 on the site of Kowloon's first cinema and redesigned by AvroKO in 2018. The office, 465 hotel rooms, four restaurants and an art gallery share one address, so a visitor is met in a hotel lobby rather than a lift lobby.

Jordan station is 490 metres from Eaton House, about six minutes on foot, on the Tsuen Wan line. Central is three stops from there with no change. Yau Ma Tei station, one stop north, is where the Tsuen Wan and Kwun Tong lines cross.

For the mainland, walk to Austin station, about eight minutes on. Hong Kong West Kowloon, where the high speed trains leave, is two to three minutes past it. For the airport, the footbridge through the Elements mall reaches Kowloon station and the Airport Express in eight to ten minutes.

Yau Ma Tei suits a business that travels to the mainland. The high speed rail terminus is a walk away, and the Airport Express is one footbridge further on, so a day trip to Guangzhou starts on foot.

It suits a firm that meets people for a living. A visitor arrives in a hotel lobby, a meeting can move to one of four restaurants without leaving the building, and someone flying in can sleep upstairs.

It suits a small team that wants Nathan Road for what Nathan Road costs here: around HK$3,000 for one person, about HK$9,300 for a room for four.

And it suits anyone selling into this half of Kowloon. Jordan, Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok stations run in a line up one street, so the whole catchment is a short walk or a single stop.

This is a trading and residential district, not a tower district. The tall Grade A floors are south of here, in Tsim Sha Tsui and at West Kowloon.

Street level is busy from morning until late, with stalls, delivery vans and Temple Street after dark. That is the district working as it should, but it is not quiet.

Mong Kok is one stop north and opens lowest on this stretch of Nathan Road, at HK$2,623 for one person. Yau Ma Tei is a hidden district on this site, and its listings also appear under Mong Kok.

Jordan is the next block south and opens level with Yau Ma Tei at around HK$3,000, closer still to the high speed rail.

Tsim Sha Tsui is two stops south at HK$2,992, buying the harbour and the tourists. Yau Ma Tei is the one to see when the mainland train and a hotel front door matter more than the view.

The government has already decided to rebuild this district. The Urban Renewal Authority began its District Study for Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok in 2017, finished it in 2021 and put the findings to the Legislative Council that September. The study covers about 212 hectares and names five renewal opportunity areas across the two districts.

The work is still live. On 28 March 2025 the Authority opened a design ideas competition for the same two districts, so Yau Ma Tei is being planned for the long term, not left alone.