Goldin Finance 117, an unfinished 597-meter-tall skyscraper on the outskirts of Tianjin, China’s seventh largest city, is currently the world’s tallest abandoned building.

Originally designed to be the centerpiece of a luxurious real-estate project in Tianjin, Goldin Finance 117, aka China 117 Tower, is famous for being the world’s tallest unfinished and unoccupied building. Construction began in 2008, but was halted just two years later, during the fallout of the Great Recession. Work on the project was resumed in 2011, with an estimated completion date between 2018 and 2019. However, by September 2015, construction was once again suspended and has not resumed since. When work on Goldin Finance 117 was suspended, the impressive skyscraper was the fifth tallest building in the world. Now it’s the world’s tallest abandoned building.

Photo: N509FZ/Wikimedia Commons

Goldin Finance 117 was supposed to have 128 floors above ground, 117 of which were planned as hotel and commercial space and 11 floors dedicated to mechanical and operational services, as well as four underground levels. Unlike most other buildings of comparable size, it was designed to be habitable up to its highest point. Interestingly, compared only to the highest inhabitable floor, China 117 Tower would be second only to Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. Unfortunately, the entire skyscraper remains completely uninhabited.

So where did it all go wrong? Well, some say the odds were stacked against the project from the very beginning. For one, the developer, Goldin Group, was a new player in the Chinese market, and lacking the backing of the Chinese Government meant having to fully self-finance the entire development project. It was a risky venture, but if the company could pull it off, the rewards would be worth it. Unfortunately, the 2008 financial crisis put even more pressure on Goldin.

Photo: Goldin Properties Holdings

By the time 2011 rolled around, construction on Golding Finance 117 resumed, and despite other minor hiccups things were looking up. However, in 2015, following a ceremony to celebrate the topping of the skyscraper at 597 meters, all construction work ceased. Following the bursting of the Chinese stock market bubble, Goldin lacked the reserves to keep its own stock price afloat, and its leaders could only stand by as the price plummeted.

Some say that developing a luxurious project in a second-tier like Tianjin was a bad idea to begin with because it just didn’t spark the interest of the elite it was meant to impress. As The B1M puts it, “It was like attempting to build New York’s Hudson Yards on the outskirts of Philadelphia”. The last hope of seeing Goldin Finance 117 completed apparently faded in 2018, and the 600-meter-tall skyscraper has been abandoned ever since.

 

Today, Goldin Finance 117 isn’t only the world’s tallest “ghostscraper,” but also a cautionary tale for other developers and even the Chinese Government. Following the failure of Golding Group’s project, authorities issued a decree in 2020 to significantly limit the scale and number of skyscrapers being built across the country.