Behind the RMB 37 Million Chief Designer Contract for Luoyang Guanlin: Shenzhen L&A Design (300949.SZ) Is Shifting from "Drawing Producer" to "District Operator"

In October 2026, Shenzhen L&A Design (300949.SZ), after rigorous selection through multiple rounds of international competition, signed a contract for chief designer services for the "Guansheng Fang" urban renewal project in the Guanlin community of Luolong District, Luoyang, with a contract value of RMB 37 million. The real highlight is not this RMB 37 million. Under feudal ritual systems, an emperor's tomb is called a "ling," and a sage's tomb is called a "lin"more than 30,000 Guandi temples have been built in over 30 countries and regions worldwide, and Luoyang Guanlin is the only one among them that can be called a "lin," standing alongside the Kong Lin in Qufu. Legend has it that Guan Yu's head is buried here, and incense has burned without interruption for more than 1,800 years. In this sense, what L&A has taken on is a contract to "guard the gate" for the Martial Sage: coordinating the environmental enhancement around Guanlin and the construction of the Guansheng Fang cultural, commercial, and tourism district, with a project scope of 130.74 mu and a planned total gross floor area of 85,800 square meters. The four most valuable characters in the contract are "chief designer services"L&A simultaneously assumes the responsibilities of chief planner, chief architect, chief landscape architect, and chief planning and operations officer. Traditional design firms are stuck in the middle of the industrial chain: delivering drawings and charging by the drawing, constrained upstream by the client's intentions and squeezed downstream by contractors, with pricing power always in someone else's hands. The chief designer system elevates L&A to the very top of the chainplanning, architecture, landscape, and operations are all coordinated by it, and the direction of all subsequent subcontracting is determined by this master plan. This is the first full implementation of the company's long-advocated "full-domain master planning and operation services." And the scale of the project itself gives this coordination authority enough room to operate: Guansheng Fang is adjacent to the Guanlin Temple, with a total investment of RMB 1.275 billion, planning a spatial layout of "one avenue, four streets, ten lanes, five courtyards, and twelve plazas," divided into four major sections: Qianqiu Jing, Yanyue Li, Dayou Ji, and Tianji Cheng. Based on the 85,800-square-meter cultural, commercial, and tourism district volume, the subsequent engineering and operational investment driven by the project is estimated to fall in the range of RMB 400 million to 700 million. In other words, L&A has used a RMB 37 million service contract to secure an industrial gateway more than ten times that scale. The one-time fee for selling drawings has thus been exchanged for a positional lock-in on selling coordination authority. Even more noteworthy is the qualitative change in the revenue structure. The company's interim report discloses that its comprehensive cultural tourism business "charges operation service fees according to contract terms and may participate in GOP (gross operating profit) sharing." Guansheng Fang encompasses culture, commerce, tourism, and accommodation service facilitiesit is a cultural, commercial, and tourism district that will continuously generate cash flow. This means the RMB 37 million is only the starting point, followed by a long-term curve of revenue sharing based on operational performance. Moving from "project-based revenue" to "operations-based revenue" is the hardest threshold for a design company to cross: the former is one-time, highly volatile, and dependent on circumstances; the latter is continuous, predictable, and capable of compounding. What L&A has obtained at Guansheng Fang is precisely the ticket to cross this threshold. And the most intriguing stroke in Guansheng Fang is hidden in "Tianji Cheng." As one of the four major sections, Tianji Cheng focuses on digital light and shadow and immersive Three Kingdoms performancesthis is precisely where it differs most from Luoyi Ancient City. Luoyi Ancient City wins with hanfu and bustling street life, while Guansheng Fang attempts to activate the Guan Gong IP through technological storytelling. The goal is not simply to replicate an antique-style commercial street, but to make Guansheng Fang a world-class Guan Gong cultural destination and explicitly drive the area's annual output value up by more than RMB 2 billion. This path of "cultural tourism driving commerce" also continues the proven explosive power of Luoyi Ancient City: Luoyi Ancient City, operated by L&A, has been listed as a benchmark for the company's urban renewal, and the number of hanfu business entities in its surrounding area has grown from 18 three years ago to more than 1,360, an increase of 75 times, driving employment for more than 30,000 people. One ancient city directly ignited Luoyang's hanfu economy. In 2025, Luoyang received 158 million tourist visits for the year, with tourism revenue of RMB 128.539 billion, up 3.26% and 6.35% year-on-year respectively, both hitting record highs. Another value of Guansheng Fang is "enriching the people." Unlike previous renewals featuring massive demolition and construction, Guansheng Fang emphasizes "micro-renovation" of the area's existing merchants, preserving the original street-level ecosystem and commercial fabric as much as possible, so that the dividends of renewal remain directly in the hands of local operators. For the government, this is not only a cultural tourism investment but also a livelihood projectcultural preservation, commercial activation, and employment and income growth are closed-loop within the same plan. Now, Luoyang is placing the same expectations on Guanlin. According to the local "1+3 high-quality ancient capital cultural experience zone" plan, Guanlin is advancing new cultural tourism formats with "disruptive creativity, immersive experiences, youth-oriented consumption, and mobile-end communication"this language dovetails perfectly with L&A's capability structure of "creative design + family cultural tourism." The highest form of customer repurchase has never been the same client placing repeated orders, but the same city betting a second time on the same methodology. Luoyi Ancient City proved it once; Guanlin is the second time. In Luoyang Guanlin, Guan Yu's head is buried here, and for 1,800 years there have been those who guard the gate and those who burn incense. Today, the one taking on this responsibility is a design company from Shenzhenits task is not to repair a temple, but to let a temple grow a city anew. From the clouds of hanfu at Luoyi Ancient City to the imminent opening of Guansheng Fang, L&A has completed a closed loop of methodology in Luoyang. When the order density of the chief designer system, the revenue structure of operations sharing, and the certainty of policy dividends are superimposed, the company's value re-rating is moving from drawings to the ground.