The future of Saigon’s most prominent skeleton tower has become even murkier.
According to Vietnam’s State Bank, Tuoi Tre reports, the Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) on Monday seized control of the unfinished Saigon One Tower in downtown District 1 as collateral over its investor’s debt.
Until this point, the building’s owners, including four real estate and investment companies, had amassed more than VND7 trillion (US$308 million) in debt.
A representative from the bank told the newspaper that after a long period of pressuring the investors to no avail, VAMC had to take over the building as the building's financiers could neither repay their debt nor come up with a feasible plan to do so in the future.
Back in April, many Saigoneers were excited by the news that work on the Saigon One Tower would continue under a new developer, Alpha King Real Estate Development JSC, while Singapore's RSP Architects Group would oversee the final designs.
However, it remains unclear if the unfinished structure will ever be completed after the State Bank became involved.
The Saigon One Tower broke ground in 2007 and was initially set to be completed in 2009. Of course, as is the way things are in Vietnam, only 80% of the building was ready by 2011 when the local housing market crashed. The towering structure has remained untouched ever since.
