On December 26, 2025, Wuyue Plaza at Changzhou Starry City grandly opened. This marks a pivotal operational stage for Xinlong Lake International Financial Plaza (Starry City) and turns the overall positioning of Changzhou HSR New City into reality step by step. In 2020, OBERMEYER, in collaboration with the Urban Planning and Design Institute of Southeast University, won the bid for the planning and design of Changzhou HSR New City, with OBERMEYER being responsible for the detailed urban design of the new city's core zone. 

As a core initiative for Changzhou to elevate its urban grade and regional competitiveness, Changzhou HSR New City covers a total planned area of 56 km². Its core zone for detailed urban design spans 4.6 km², with a 1.33 km² Core Area for elaborate design centered on the HSR station and featuring water elements. The planned population is 420,000. Based on the TOD development concept, OBERMEYER integrated advanced international planning ideas with Changzhou's local characteristics. It adopted diverse planning strategies to advance and materialize the new city’s overall positioning step by step, creating a spatial pattern of One Axis, One Ring and Three Districts.

Planning Strategies

• Building a Regional Landmark shapes the area’s image by highlighting the distinctive features of Changzhou North Railway Station, making the new city’s core identity more prominent. Leveraging the station’s hub advantages, OBERMEYER focuses on creating a 24-hour lakeside dynamic ring, covering diverse all-day scenarios including morning exercises, business office, afternoon tea, night cruises and concerts. This makes the new city not only a gathering place for industrial and office activities, but also a vibrant urban space full of life.
• Developing Distinctive Zone Features consolidates the industrial development foundation of the new city. By highlighting the image of key nodes, OBERMEYER deploys four complexes – financial and commercial, amusement, headquarters office and cultural – around the Xinlong lake. As the core, the west lake financial and commercial complex - Starry City gathers diverse high-end formats such as premium offices, commercial consumption and star-rated hotels. It forms a clustered development pattern with clear functions and complementary formats together with the other three complexes, building an industrial ecosystem led by digital new media, finance and professional services.
• Reshaping the Landscape System creates a unique ecological backdrop for the new city. OBERMEYER constructs a three-tier open space system of broad water surface - waterfront ecological space - waterfront leisure space. Centered on Xinlong Lake, the system connects parks, squares, plank roads, waterfronts and other scenes, building a dynamic slow traffic system and a lakeside leisure complex. This integrates ecological landscapes into industrial office and citizens’ daily life, achieving seamless integration of ecology and urban development.
• Optimizing Public Transportation lays a solid transportation foundation for the new city’s development. OBERMEYER planned the northward extension of Rail Line 3 along North Changjiang Road and the southward relocation of Rail Line 4 to connect with Xinqiao Station. A BRT loop was also set up to link key nodes in the core zone, building an efficient and convenient regional transportation hub. This fully unleashes the hub advantages of Changzhou North Railway Station, opens the internal and external transportation arteries for the Starry City, and achieves in-depth integration of transportation, industry and urban space.

Today, with the commissioning and operation of landmark projects such as Wuyue Plaza, Sofitel Hotel and Novotel Hotel, the forward-looking masterplan of Changzhou HSR New City is gradually becoming a reality. Leveraging its extensive experience and professional expertise in TOD development, new city development, urban core areas and large-scale commercial complexes, OBERMEYER has not only filled gaps in regional urban functions, but also activated the vitality of regional development, injecting sustained growth momentum into the new city.

In the future, this new city integrating convenient transportation, livable urban areas, smart innovative valleys and picturesque landscapes will become a new engine for Changzhou’s high-quality development. OBERMEYER will continue to empower more key urban areas with exquisite planning and design, creating more development benchmarks.