China's Ghost Towers Are Getting a Second Chance and the World's Tallest Abandoned Building Is Leading the Way

For a decade, the world's tallest unoccupied building has stood frozen at 597 metres above Tianjin, its steel frame topped out but its interiors dark, its developer bankrupt, its Guinness World Record one nobody wanted.

That is changing.

Goldin Finance 117, a 128-storey supertall skyscraper in Tianjin's Xiqing District, resumed construction in 2025 after sitting abandoned since December 2015, when its developer Goldin Properties collapsed following China's stock market crash. A

A new construction permit was issued in April 2025, listing state-owned BGI Engineering Consultants as the contractor. The contract value is nearly 569 million yuan, approximately USD 78 million. Completion is now targeted for 2027. On March 28, 2026, the first steel component of the building's distinctive diamond-shaped crown was hoisted to the rooftop, the clearest visual signal yet that the revival is real.

The building's resurrection is part of a broader, deliberate effort by Chinese authorities and state-backed entities to revive stalled skyscraper projects that became symbols of the country's property market collapse. Seventeen companies have already committed to leasing space in Goldin Finance 117, including seven state-owned enterprises and ten private firms.

China's property crisis has left extraordinary wreckage. Evergrande, once the country's largest developer, accumulated over USD 300 billion in debt before a Hong Kong court ordered its liquidation in 2024, leaving 1.5 million unfinished homes and dozens of stalled construction sites across the country.

At its peak, an estimated 65 million homes sat empty across China, many bought as investment assets and never occupied. Ghost cities built for populations that never arrived became internationally recognised shorthand for the limits of growth-at-all-costs urbanisation.

In Shenzhen, plans for what would have been China's tallest tower were scrapped entirely after the developer ran into difficulty. In Shanghai, stalled developments are being eyed for conversion to rental housing as the government tries to address urban affordability through repurposing rather than demolition.

The approach reflects both practical economics and political calculation. Demolishing a supertall skyscraper is expensive, legally complex and politically uncomfortable when the units were pre-sold to buyers who are still waiting. Reviving them, even at a loss, at least produces an asset.

In January 2026, senior Tianjin city officials held direct discussions with the leadership of China CITIC Group, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, and China Cinda specifically on revitalising the Goldin Finance 117 project, a level of political attention that signals how seriously local governments are treating these abandoned towers as urban liabilities.

The economic viability of the revival remains uncertain. Tianjin's office market has weakened significantly since 2015. Analysts point out that the city now has another supertall building, the Tianjin CTF Finance Centre at 530 metres, that was completed during Goldin Finance 117's long pause. The question of who will ultimately fill 128 floors of commercial, hotel and residential space in a market with sluggish occupancy rates has not been answered.

What has been answered is that China is done letting these buildings stand as monuments to failure. Whether the second attempt succeeds where the first did not is a question the next few years will settle.