You might need to sit down for this: in the next few months, Saigon’s most popular cafe apartment building at 42 Nguyen Hue Boulevard will be stripped of its businesses.
As Thanh Nien reported last year, households are not allowed to conduct business in apartment units, according to Vietnam’s law on residential spaces. In 2016, a slew of Hanoi’s apartment-bound shops were the first to go as a result of the policy.
Saigon authorities also followed suit, sending removal notices to many shops currently located inside the metropolis’ residential complexes. According to Yan, merchants have 15 days to vacate their premises. However, that was last year, and it appears that local authorities are in no rush to evict Saigon’s crop of apartment shops.
A resident living in the Nguyen Hue building shared with the news source that at the moment, almost every unit in the apartment’s A and B blocks have been rented out to vendors. Residents only occupy the C block, whose rooms are smaller and thus not conducive for business.
Currently, the rent for a unit in Block A – which has a view of the walking street – ranges from VND20-35 million (US$878-1,536) per month, depending on the floor. Block B units are worth around VND16 million (US$702) per month.
Authorities have said the main reason for removing shops from apartment buildings is that such buildings in Saigon are poorly maintained and were not originally constructed to house cafes.
