Real estate was once considered a pillar industry, and investors flocked in, hoping to get a piece of the action. These investments led to high housing prices and also left many unfinished buildings.
Big cities are places where capital investment is most concentrated because of their dense populations and high consumption levels, so unfinished buildings are not uncommon in cities.
In a place like a city where every inch of land is valuable, unfinished buildings not only cost huge amounts of money and require investors to bear huge losses, but also waste precious land resources, which has been criticized by many people.
There are 10 "famous" unfinished buildings in China, the most expensive of which cost as much as 600 billion yuan. Which ones have you seen?
1. Shenzhen Dongmen Building
In the prime business district of Luohu, next to a densely populated subway entrance, there is a high-rise building that has been unfinished for 23 years. That is the Shenzhen Dongmen Building.
As one of the few megacities and sub-provincial cities in China, Shenzhen's housing prices have exceeded 58,000 yuan per square meter. It is a place where every inch of land is worth a lot of money. It is hard to imagine that this unfinished building would be left alone.
Construction of Dongmen Building began in 1995 but was shelved in 1997 due to property rights and funding issues.
In fact, the location of Dongmen Building is very advantageous. There is a school to the east of the building, and there are many shops nearby with a large flow of people. It is a great place for investment. It is a waste of resources for it to become an unfinished building.
It was not until 2020 that the local government took a series of remediation measures against the Dongmen Building to resolve property rights disputes and revitalize land resources.
2. Hangzhou Wanyu Building
In 2010, a boss from Wenzhou spent 120 million yuan to build the Wanyu Building in Qianjiang Century City in Hangzhou. He seemed to be at the peak of his life, but things are unpredictable.
In 2018, a Wenzhou boss was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison, leaving behind an unfinished building.
Wanyu Building is divided into two buildings, A and B. Its original conception was to build high-end office buildings and shops, which is basically the operating model of shopping malls across the country.
If the Wanyu Building could be built as planned, the final profit would not be bad. However, the construction was finally stopped due to lack of funds and various illegal operations.
After the work was stopped, the boss also lost contact, and the migrant workers and construction workers had no money, so they could only hold up banners to demand their wages. These illegal operations brought a lot of trouble to the handling of Wanyu Building.
Finally, Wanyu Building was successfully auctioned for 780 million yuan, ending its unfinished project.
3. Guangzhou Zhongshui Building
Located in Guangzhou's most prosperous Tianhe North Road business district is Guangzhou's first unfinished building, the Zhongshui Building. With 43 floors, it is difficult to demolish and cannot be reused due to various problems.
The China Water Tower began construction in 1994 and has been abandoned since it was topped out in 1999. It even failed to sell at auction, becoming a hot potato.
The most important thing about a high-rise building is not its height but its quality. Otherwise, typhoon weather can easily cause safety problems. The reason why the China Water Building has not been put into operation is because of its poor quality.
The contractor cut corners during construction, resulting in failure of acceptance, and the investor lost more than 600 million yuan. The undecorated concrete surface of the Zhongshui Building was out of tune with the surrounding buildings.
In addition to the China Water Building, there are 35 unfinished buildings in Guangzhou, almost all of which were suspended due to broken capital chains. These unfinished buildings not only waste land resources, but also affect the city's image.
4. Chongqing Nanshan Mansion
Chongqing Nanshan Mansion is positioned as a high-end villa area. The 51 neatly arranged villas are located in Huaguoshe, Tushan Town, Nan'an District, which is a famous scenic spot in the area.
From the villa, you can see the confluence of the Yangtze River and Jialing River. The air is fresh and the scenery is beautiful. If it had not become an unfinished building, it would have been very popular among high-end people.
In 2008, Dongqi Real Estate started to build Nanshan Mansion with the theme of "Dongqi Fantasy", and the planning, forestry and other procedures were successfully passed.
However, real estate investment is a money-burning project. Without huge funds, it is easy to break the capital chain and go bankrupt.
One of the development companies withdrew due to financial pressure after investing 59.84 million yuan.
Dongqi Real Estate encountered many disputes and lawsuits during the trust financing process, and the construction of Nanshan Mansion had to be shelved, becoming an abandoned building in a famous scenic area.
5. Chengdu Greenland 468 Star
The Starry Project is also a real estate product serving high-end people, mainly providing a social venue for corporate executives in the most prosperous area of the city.
But until May this year, there was no movement on the Xingyao project as if it had disappeared. Not only was there no one guarding the construction site, but even the periphery was blocked tightly.
The most eye-catching building in the Xingyao project is the Shufeng Tower, which will become the tallest building in Chengdu, reaching a height of 468 meters, so it has attracted companies such as Huawei and JD.com to cooperate.
In order to promote its brand, the company even said it would perform a light show at the 31st World University Games.
However, the construction progress of the project was very unsatisfactory and the entire building has not yet been topped off.
This unfinished building has become a well-known "famous building" in the local area, affecting the regional image and having a certain negative impact on the surrounding commercial development.
6. Tianjin 117 Building
"Tall" seems to have become a gimmick for the marketing of commercial buildings and office buildings. The titles of the world's tallest building and China's tallest building themselves bring traffic, attracting investors and tourists.
Tianjin’s 117 Building is named after its 117 floors and is probably the tallest and most famous of all the unfinished buildings.
The construction of the Taipei 117 Building, which is expected to be the tallest building in China, has not been going smoothly. The area surrounding the building is very desolate, which makes people marvel at the investment and regret its suspension.
The construction of the 117 Building began in 2008, and was suspended and unfinished for the next nine years. By 2016, nearly 40 billion yuan had been invested in the project, and it was later sold for 18 billion yuan, causing the construction cost to rise sharply.
The sales performance of the 117 Building after its completion was not ideal. It cost at least 6 million yuan to buy a house, and the housing price was about 40,000 yuan per square meter, but the housing price in Tianjin city was only 28,000 yuan per square meter.
7. Shuisi Building, Dushan County, Guizhou
The Dushan County Water Conservancy Bureau Building is known as the "No. 1 Water Conservancy Bureau Building in the World". It is not well-known for its grandeur, but because of the investigation of Pan Zhili, secretary of the Dushan County Party Committee.
As a county in Qiannan Prefecture, Guizhou Province, Dushan County's annual fiscal revenue is less than 1 billion yuan, but Pan Zhili took out a huge sum of 200 million yuan to build the so-called "world's tallest glazed ceramic building."
The development of tourism has indeed been the country's focus in recent years. Many cities have vigorously launched characteristic tourism industries, and there is nothing wrong with Dushan County responding to the policy.
However, the government should act within its means and should not sacrifice the legitimate rights and interests of the people for the sake of developing tourism, which would ultimately lead to the Water Authority Building becoming a "sky-high priced unfinished building."
After the Water Conservancy Bureau Building was built, it did not live up to the initial expectations, and the ideas of accommodation, exhibitions and expositions were not realized. It was not until this year that the Dushan County Government began to solve the operation problems of the Water Conservancy Bureau Building.
8. Kunming’s Internet-famous real estate projects
A popular real estate project in Kunming was named "A Different Kind of Happy City", but it ended up being an unfortunate "happiness". After 10 years, the owners finally moved into the houses they had bought so many years ago.
In 2013, the construction of Beiyang Xingfu City began, with housing prices at around 8,000 yuan per square meter.
The owners were looking forward to moving into their new homes in 2015, but the developer’s capital chain broke and the houses could not be delivered on time.
In the next 10 years, Beiyang Xingfu City had no water and electricity, and the owners who moved in found it very inconvenient to live a normal life, yet they still had to pay their mortgages every month.
Many residents have no money to rent a house after spending all their savings, so they can only move into the Different Happy City with incomplete infrastructure, and live a life of carrying water and relying on rechargeable lamps for lighting every day.
Fortunately, with the intervention of the government, Xingfu City was able to deliver the houses in 2023, and promised to continue to improve infrastructure such as playgrounds and senior activity centers.
9. Shijiazhuang Xiangyun International
Xiangyun International is also a famous "Internet celebrity unfinished building". It is a residential and commercial area that Hebei Federal Group began to build in 2009, covering an area of 485 acres.
Xiangyun International, which was supposed to be built and delivered as planned, stopped construction in 2014. There were two main reasons for this.
On the one hand, Hebei Federal Group’s capital chain was insufficient, and it was unable to repay its debts as agreed, and it did not have the ability to repay its debts, so it was ordered by the court to reorganize.
On the other hand, there are problems with Xiangyun International itself. The developer committed illegal acts such as illegally occupying land and raising funds during the construction process, and relevant leaders of the Federal Group were arrested and imprisoned.
Shijiazhuang is the capital city of Hebei Province. Every piece of land has its use and economic value. The unfinished project of Xiangyun International has affected urban planning, left many safety hazards, and harmed the legitimate rights and interests of more than 5,000 people.
10. Nanyang, the “capital of unfinished buildings”
Nanyang has profoundly demonstrated how unfinished buildings affect the image of a city. In 2014, it had 302 problematic real estate projects, of which unfinished buildings only accounted for a small part.
Not only does the outside world have the impression that Nanyang is the "capital of unfinished buildings", even the locals make fun of themselves for the unfinished group purchases.
Take the Beautiful City community, which was delivered in 2016, for example. Among the 41 residential buildings, only three have owners living in them, and the rest are empty.
It’s not that no one wants to buy these vacant houses, but that they are simply uninhabitable.
Most of the houses are bare bones or just have an empty frame. At night, they are all pitch black and have no sense of life.
In order to solve the problem of unfinished projects, Nanyang began to regulate the real estate industry in 2014, but the effect was minimal and it took five years to completely solve the problem projects.
Conclusion
Chinese people attach great importance to "food, clothing, housing and transportation". Any problem in any of these will affect the quality of life.
What’s more, a house is the most important asset for an ordinary family, so unfinished buildings affect the interests of millions of ordinary people, and investors’ money is also wasted.
The investment in the real estate industry is often tens of millions, and many high-rise buildings cannot be built without capital of hundreds of millions. The above-mentioned companies that went bankrupt due to lack of funds are typical examples.
China's real estate investment has always been too "hot", and these unfinished buildings are warning investors to act within their means.
Local governments must do a better job of supervising real estate construction and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the people.