An IMGlobalWealth.news Report
For more than a decade, Tianjin 117 Tower has been a monument to the risks of building for prestige before demand. Now the nearly 600-metre skyscraper, still unfinished and unoccupied, is moving towards completion with another distinction: it is expected to contain the world’s longest elevator hoistways in a building.
Otis said this week that it will supply or modernise 251 lifts and escalators at the tower. Two SkyRise elevators will have maximum rises exceeding 597 metres, which the company says will make them the longest elevator hoistways installed in a building. The tower itself is already recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s tallest unoccupied building, at 595.5 metres. The Council on Vertical Urbanism measures its architectural height at 596.6 metres, with 128 floors, and currently expects completion in 2027.
“Supertalls can project confidence, capital and national ambition. But height is not demand, and a skyline can advertise economic power only for as long as the floors behind the glass find users”
The project’s history is less triumphant. Construction began in 2008 and the tower topped out in 2015, just as developer Goldin Properties ran into financial difficulty following China’s stock-market crash. Work was suspended and the structure remained empty for years. Construction has now restarted, turning one of China’s most conspicuous property failures back into an active development.
Its revival comes into a markedly weaker Chinese property market than the one in which it was conceived. Official data show national real-estate development investment fell 19.2% year-on-year in the first seven months of 2026, while the floor area of newly built commercial property sold declined 11.8%. Investment in office buildings dropped 21.9%.
Tianjin itself has struggled with surplus office space. Colliers measured the citywide office vacancy rate at 34.9% in the first half of 2025, while rents fell 6% year-on-year. It subsequently reported that vacancy remained high as insufficient new demand met additional supply.
That makes Tianjin 117 more than an architectural curiosity. Asia has other examples where vertical ambition ran ahead of economics. Pyongyang’s 330-metre, 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel, begun in 1987 as a showcase of national prosperity, has never opened. Bangkok’s 49-storey Sathorn Unique, conceived as luxury condominiums, was abandoned during the 1997 Asian financial crisis and remains unfinished.
China has since changed course. National rules now prohibit new buildings above 500 metres and tightly restrict those exceeding 250 metres, reflecting concerns including safety, energy consumption, cost and cities competing for record-breaking height.
The Gulf offers a more complicated comparison. Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower, designed to exceed one kilometre, restarted construction in January 2025 after a lengthy halt and is targeting completion in 2028. Yet Dubai currently provides little evidence that skyscraper ambition is unsupported by occupier demand: CBRE reported office occupancy of about 94% in Q2 2026, with average rents up 13% year-on-year despite regional disruption.
Tianjin 117 therefore tells a subtler story than “ghost skyscraper” alone. Supertalls can project confidence, capital and national ambition. But height is not demand, and a skyline can advertise economic power only for as long as the floors behind the glass find users.
