Some 1,000 miles from the Olympic Games in Beijing, China's manufacturing hub of Guangzhou is preparing for its own moment in the sports spotlight as it gears up to host the Asian Games in 2010. In the works are ultramodern skyscrapers, new stadiums and a 2,000-foot-high television and sightseeing structure that is slated to be nearly double the height of the Eiffel Tower.

Information Based Architecture The Guangzhou TV and Sightseeing Tower is expected to be completed at the end of next year.

"Like Beijing, everybody is working to get things done before the games," says Thomas Kerwin, a partner at Chicago-based architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP. "Obviously all corporations want to put on a good face."

SOM designed several new buildings that will add a gee-whiz factor to Guangzhou's skyline, including the 71-story Pearl River Tower now under construction that will house state-owned China National Tobacco Co. Guangdong and other companies. Slated to be completed in 2010, it will generate much of its own energy through wind turbines and solar panels.

Among the other high-profile designers working in the city: London-based Zaha Hadid Architects designed a new opera house under construction, and Information Based Architecture of Amsterdam designed the TV and sightseeing tower that will contain retail shops and gardens with teahouses.

Still, the continuing face-lift and construction boom hasn't insulated Guangzhou's economy and commercial real-estate market from the global economic slowdown, which is battering the manufacturing sector in the province of Guangdong in southern China where Guangzhou is located. The annual growth rate of the province's gross domestic product is expected to fall to about 10% from 14.5% last year, according to Global Insight Inc., an economic-research firm based in Waltham, Mass.

Slowing demand for goods and rising labor costs in the city of Guangzhou, home to about 8.8 million people and located roughly 100 miles from Hong Kong, has cut its ability to compete. This year many manufacturers have shuttered factories, relocating to cheaper locations in central China and Vietnam, says Todd Lee, managing director of Global Insight's Greater China group.

That is damping demand for office space from manufacturing companies, which are a crucial tenant base, just as more new buildings are being completed. Over the next few years, about 11 skyscrapers are expected to be built in Guangzhou, including a number in an emerging area known as Pearl River New City outside the historic business district, according to Property & Portfolio Research Inc., a Boston-based real-estate research firm.

The supply comes as Guangzhou's office market, one of China's largest outside of Beijing and Shanghai, already is among the weakest of the major Asian markets, PPR says. Guangzhou's first-quarter prime office rents of $22 a square foot annually were well below the $60 and $70 fetched in Beijing and Shanghai, respectively.

Guangzhou's vacancy rate, at 16.5% and rising, just barely outperformed Kuala Lumpur, which posted the highest vacancy rate of some 13 Asian metropolitan areas at 17%, while Bangalore had the lowest prime office rent at $17. With Guangzhou's office rents forecast to be flat at best, landlords will see incomes fall as inflation and rising wages boost costs, says John Affleck, an international economist with PPR.

In the meantime, Guangzhou is working to build up a financial-services and technology sector to offset its dependence on manufacturing. And some multinational companies such as FedEx Corp. have made big bets on the market. In December, the shipping giant will open a $150 million hub at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport.

However, the effort to attract more service-oriented businesses faces stiff competition from the nearby office market of Hong Kong, a long-established international financial capital.

Meanwhile, Shenzhen, a fast-growing manufacturing city also in Guangdong province, offers the draw of a stock exchange to financial companies.

Dazzling architecture may help raise Guangzhou's profile with higher-end companies, but, if not, it isn't clear where the demand for the new towers will come from. "Manufacturers aren't looking for great Class-A space," PPR's Mr. Affleck says. "They are looking for something near the factory."

Write to Maura Webber Sadovi at maura.sadovi@wsj.com

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