Taisei Corporation
In 1967, Freeman Fox and Wilbur Smith Associates released the government-commissioned Mass Transport Study, which proposed a new underground railway. The plan included the Island line between Kennedy Town and Chai Wan stations. When the Mass Transport Provisional Authority was founded, minor alterations were made with the Sheung Wan to Kennedy Town section cancelled. The government gave approval on the 95-million-dollar construction of the line on 23 December 1980 and work started in October 1982. In 1984, the station construction site was sold by MTR to Taisei Corporation for $380m, now the location of Sogo Hong Kong. The station opened with the first section of the Island line from Admiralty to Chai Wan on 31 May 1985.