Having seen enough of the food market, Pei Qian was preparing to head back to rest.
Although the food market wasn’t large, just walking around had taken some time, and before he knew it, it was already almost 4 PM.
Working overtime today was really tiring; he needed to go back, eat something good, and rest early.
Zhang Yahui handed over the cyberpunk-style customized notebook: “Mr. Pei, please keep this notebook as a souvenir.”
Pei Qian originally didn’t want it—he wasn’t going to come for check-ins, so what was the point of having this thing?
But seeing Zhang Yahui’s expression, it was hard to decline, so he unconsciously accepted it.
Zhang Yahui and Liang Qingfan accompanied Mr. Pei as he walked out.
However, as Pei Qian walked, he inexplicably opened the notebook and flipped through it, coincidentally turning to the page with the food market map.
The maps in the notebook were pre-printed, so they couldn’t be updated in real-time like the maps in the APP.
Therefore, the notebook contained three maps, representing the three planned stages of the food market.
The first stage was this initial opening stage.
Only the food market area was open, while the food street area was entirely under construction, shown in gray.
It felt very much like revealing a map in a game—needless to say, this was probably another one of Bao Xu’s ideas.
In this stage, the rating for food stalls would only open up to Gold, not Diamond, because they couldn’t move into independent shops on the food street yet.
In the second stage, the first batch of shops on the food street would also be renovated and ready to officially begin operations.
At this stage, stall ratings would open up to Diamond, and the first batch of Diamond stall owners could move to the food street and have independent shops. The length of the food street opened in phase one would be just under one kilometer.
In the third stage, all shops on the food street would be completely renovated and open.
More Diamond-rated food stalls would move into independent shops, while the food stalls in the food market would continue to incorporate excellent stall owners from all over the country.
Even among Diamond shops, there would be further evaluations between them. Once the entire street was connected, various interactive activities could be fully launched. This would be when the entire cyberpunk food street reached its final form.
After reaching the third stage, the straight-line length of the food street would reach nearly two kilometers. However, due to some twists and turns along the way, the actual touring length might reach around 2.8 kilometers.
This also meant that the food market and the Thrill Hostel would be connected through the entire food street, creating a completely seamless integration.
Pei Qian stopped in his tracks, a string of question marks floating above his head.
???
He looked at Zhang Yahui on his left, then at Liang Qingfan on his right.
“What’s the deal with this street…?”
Zhang Yahui was taken aback: “What do you mean? Mr. Pei, this is the ‘cyberpunk food street’ I’ve been talking about all along.”
Pei Qian asked in confusion: “Then the food market…?”
Zhang Yahui pointed behind them: “This farmers’ market is the food market, and outside is the food street.”
Pei Qian: “…”
You’ve got to be kidding me!
When Zhang Yahui was introducing earlier, he had mentioned the keyword “food street” many times.
But Pei Qian hadn’t paid special attention.
He had thought that “food street” was just another name for “food market,” that Zhang Yahui wasn’t paying attention to his wording, had misspoken, and called it wrong casually.
But now he realized that the food street and food market were two completely different concepts!
Because Pei Qian’s initial idea was just to create a food market to settle these stall owners, with no intention of making such a big deal out of it or renovating an entire street.
After Pei Qian assigned this task to Zhang Yahui and Liang Qingfan, he didn’t inquire about it anymore, completely taking a hands-off approach.
So, it was only now that he realized that the food market was just the starting point of the food street, and in the future, this entire street would be within the scope of the cyberpunk food area!
What was more terrifying was that this street happened to connect the food market and the Thrill Hostel, providing a complete one-stop service from food to entertainment!
Pei Qian fell silent.
This was absolutely not his intention!
The Thrill Hostel was currently a well-known attraction in Jingzhou. Most people who came to Jingzhou for tourism and check-ins would go to the Thrill Hostel to play.
Even if they didn’t experience those particularly terrifying, particularly stimulating projects, they would at least play the least frightening, most participatory, and repeatable Desperate Escape, then wander through the Golden Maze, and finally wash their hands at the Healing Fountain.
The current state of the Thrill Hostel, although still unable to recover the initial investment, was already in a very healthy profitable state.
As an amusement park, this was already a quite dangerous state.
Because all amusement parks in the world are long-term projects, possibly operating for twenty or thirty years without necessarily recovering costs, but their effect is long-term, continuously attracting tourists from all over the country to visit, which can boost the local tourism economy and promote the development of other industries.
As long as it could make a profit, even if slowly, it would be good to keep it running.
Moreover, the Thrill Hostel was now fully engaged in building a roller coaster project!
Next cycle, the roller coaster project would be completed, and at that time, no matter how hard they tried to avoid it, there would definitely be a large number of tourists coming to experience it.
Now, thinking about the state of the food market and food street…
The problem was too big!
After a moment of silence, Pei Qian said, “The idea of buying a street, wouldn’t happen to be Bao Xu’s too…”
Liang Qingfan said, “Oh, this one isn’t. It was my idea.”
Pei Qian gave him a look.
Well, at least it wasn’t Bao Xu this time.
Otherwise, they’d probably need to put the moon landing plan on the agenda right away.
Zhang Yahui quickly said, “Mr. Pei, shall we head over to the food street now and take a walk? Although it’s not yet fully renovated, we can see the general route.”
Pei Qian nodded.
Fine, since he was already here, walking over there personally would better determine the severity of this matter.
The distance of nearly two kilometers wasn’t very far, about a half-hour walk.
If they were eating and sightseeing along the way, it would take much longer, possibly an hour or two of touring would be normal.
But now Pei Qian and his group were just purely walking and looking at the route, so it would be much faster.
Liang Qingfan introduced, “Mr. Pei, currently there are still some vehicles passing through. However, we’ve already submitted applications to the relevant departments, and the approval has come down.”
“This section of road will soon be closed for construction, and once construction is completed, vehicles will be strictly prohibited.”
“The roadwork mainly includes renovation of building facades and advertising signs, building lighting projects to highlight the commercial atmosphere, renovating facilities along the route, and so on.”
“Of course, this renovation work has nothing to do with us; it’s funded by the relevant departments in Jingzhou.”
“Moreover, during the construction process, they will fully solicit our opinions and align the style with our shops’ decorative style.”
“After all, this involves the renovation project of the old industrial zone. The relevant departments are very supportive and want to take this opportunity to revitalize the economy of the old industrial zone and accelerate the transformation from secondary to tertiary industry.”
Pei Qian: “When did this happen?”
Liang Qingfan said, “I only found out yesterday and haven’t had time to report it.”
Pei Qian: “…”
Good grief, such a major thing, and I actually didn’t know anything about it, seriously?
We’ve just arrived at the food street entrance, and I’m already hit with such earth-shattering bad news!
It can only be said that the consistent practice of Tenda employees is to report the bad news but not the good.
In Liang Qingfan’s view, for the entire road construction, Tenda didn’t need to spend a penny or bear any responsibility, only needing to offer some suggestions. For such a good thing, was there any reason not to accept it?
Pei Qian thought about it, and indeed, there was no way not to accept it.
Even if Liang Qingfan had told him in advance, he probably would have only been able to rage impotently, helpless to do anything.
Let it be, let it be.
The three continued to walk along the food street route.
The status of various shops was not the same; some had already begun renovation, some were just closed, and others were still in operation.
This was because different shops signed contracts at different times, and some shops needed to leave a certain amount of time for handover.
After touring around, there wasn’t any special feeling.
These shops were basically all the same, and before renovation, you couldn’t see much difference.
In any case, this road was indeed very long. After walking for half an hour, their legs were almost sore by the time they reached the end.
Just ahead would be the Thrill Hostel.
Pei Qian asked, “With so many shops, the rent must be quite substantial, right?”
This was the only thing Pei Qian cared about now.
The shops on this street were calculated by kilometer. Even if the rent for one shop wasn’t high, adding them all up would amount to a significant sum.
These shops varied in size, with the largest being about the size of a small supermarket, while the smallest was just a very narrow small storefront.
Roughly estimating, there would be about 50 shops per kilometer. Although the entire route was 2.8 kilometers, it twisted and turned, passing by some shops repeatedly, so the number of shops should be over 150.
The rent for houses in the old industrial zone was very low, but with Tenda undertaking major construction here, even a fool could see that this place had high commercial value.
The original average rent was around 2,000 yuan, but now it must have increased to 3,000 or even 4,000 yuan, right?
Calculating this way, just the rent alone would be over 500,000 yuan per month, not counting water, electricity, wages, and other expenses.
Although this amount wasn’t much, it was still an expense!
Moreover, now that the profit of the food street had been severely compressed by Pei Qian, with all food prices set as low as possible, given the current profit, it was definitely in a state where expenses exceeded income, so this rent would be a pure expense.
Thinking about it this way, he felt much better.
Indeed, changing one’s perspective on problems makes one happier.
Liang Qingfan smiled: “As for the rent, it’s actually not bad.”
“Because for the shops we’re renting, we’ve signed ten-year long-term leases, with rental prices 50% higher than the original price, averaging about 3,000 yuan per shop.”
“Moreover, about 40% of the shops here have already been purchased. Although we paid about a 50% premium to close the deals, the shops are ours after all, so we don’t have to worry about rent in the future.”