Beijing's Dongcheng District has gained another urban renewal landmark where visitors can stroll, linger, and spend. The Qianmen Xixinglong Street urban renewal project, known as "Qianmen Changxiangli," officially debuted on September 24, opening a vibrant new chapter for the sustainable revitalization and upgrading of the old city.
The Qianmen Xixinglong Street urban renewal project is located in the Qianmen East Area, stretching from Qianmen East Road in the west to Caochang Santiao in the east, covering a total area of approximately 1.26 hectares and encompassing 7 clusters and 16 plots. Drawing on the rich commercial and cultural heritage of Xixinglong Street, the project carefully curates quality commercial offerings while preserving the essence of traditional cultural heritage. It brings together the collective design wisdom of 7 experts deeply engaged in old city preservation, achieving an overall enhancement of the old city's character and a comprehensive renewal of the neighborhood's functions.
Changxiangli is situated in the historic and cultural core zone of the old city. Formed along waterways, its distinctive diagonal street layout creates a unique fan-shaped hutong texture characteristic of the old city. The debut of Changxiangli marks yet another achievement in Dongcheng District's continued advancement of urban renewal. In recent years, Dongcheng District has taken heritage preservation as its foundation and livelihood improvement as its main thread, continuously exploring practical pathways for organic renewal of the old city, revitalizing a number of historic neighborhoods through preservation and allowing historical heritage and modern life to coexist and flourish together.
On the same day, Dongcheng District also hosted the 2026 Annual Conference on Historic and Cultural Cities, themed "Inheriting Cultural Heritage with New Charm of the Ancient Capital, Embracing Love Under Zhengyangmen," promoting a two-way integration of heritage preservation and urban renewal. At the forum, Shan Jixiang, the sixth director of the Palace Museum and director of the Beijing Dongcheng Cultural Development Research Institute, stated that the old city's cultural heritage must break free from static preservation and integrate into contemporary daily life. This perspective serves as a vivid footnote to Dongcheng District's practice of historic city preservation in recent years.
In recent years, Dongcheng District has resolutely implemented the requirement that "the old city must not be demolished again," advancing with high quality the vacating and restoration of 12 Central Axis heritage sites including the Altar of Land and Grain and the Imperial Ancestral Temple, fully clearing the 7.8-kilometer landscape corridor from the Bell and Drum Towers to Yongdingmen, while deepening the restoration of historical water systems, extending preservation from individual cultural relics to the entire street and alley ecological space, and building a solid foundation for historic city preservation.
At the same time, Dongcheng District has renovated the Sanli River and the ancient course of the Yu River, restoring the scenery of "water flowing through streets and alleys." Through the governance of Chongyong Street, it has also revived the elegance of "literary grace and capital charm, grand market and silver street." Time and again, Dongcheng has made preservation achievements tangible and accessible, bringing them into the daily lives of citizens.