Costs: 55 millions USD
Height: 35 storeys, 170+ metres
Joint project Bonday Investments Limited (Hong Kong), Vietcombank and Ben Thanh Tourist
Location: Saigon Downtown


Other Highrise projects
Apartments




Hotel


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I feel so sorry for Hanoi, always being left behind.

when will it be built?

We should stop copying Western buildings and use our own distinct architecture.

Imagine a city with mostly ancient Vietnamese style architecture.

The art and beauty might attract tourists.

you can't built high tower with asian style.. This is a financial tower...

I'm in agreement with Byron. Using Western styles is ridiculous.

What? You can't make a Western building with a oriental style roof?

I'm sure our engineers can work wonders if given enough motivation. I have faith in our people.

Bonday Ben Thanh will start construction within the next 3 months. All the other projects are under construction.

So that's a name of the buidling??

It's kinda lame lol

9 to 10 odds that the Chinese will dominate our economy in the next 50 years.

Bonday Ben Thanh is the name. I couldn't care less about the name, the fact is that the building looks awesome speaks for itself.

HK stake in the building is 30% and Vietnamese 70%


Well we need foreign capital, what do you expect? Isn't Chinese economy dominated by western and Taiwanese firms anyway?

We need their investments. Once our economy is prospering, we'll start buying their stakes and reassert our control. Isn't that what happening with all Asian economies and what happened in Japan?

Everybody has their price. The Chinese are not giving out investment for free you know. Once we open our economy more, and foreigners control it more how are we going to "break free" and reassert our control when they are the ones who can decide to let us "break free" or not since they control the majority share.

We need to learn our history lesson from Indonesia and Singapore and what happened to them when too many foreigners got involved with those countries.

Better that we grow more slower but at least it is our people who own it rather than growing faster but it belongs to another nationality.

No nation does things for free you know.

Hmm do they have an estimate time when they're completed :S?

i think that is awesome..i dont think there is anythign wrong with havin some western style ...and plus..we will be in the record book! ahahahaha

Not if the government intervenesand does foreigner control of business. As soon as Viet govt sees more foreign businesses opening, they should start offering special incentives to Vietnamese people when opening a business. Hell, the government could even help them. That way, the business culture in Vietnam stays mainly Vietnamese.

No China has the advantage. China already is industrialized, so their factories are already developed and thus it is cheaper to produce a product in China than to start up production in Vietnam which doesn't have as much factories as China does. Chinese that come over to Vietnam have cheaper goods as well as more experience.

I doubt Vietnamese would spend extra money for national pride rather than getting cheaper Chinese goods.

You know nothing about the world economic engine and how it functions. Go and learn 3 years before come back and talk to a finance and banking student (aka ME)


I think 3 years.

Tell that to the Indonesians.

What do you want? Your land or money?

Hmm do you think the office rental payment will be high ?

Rediculous? VN have no choice but adapt western style. What Eastern style would look good? Have you seen Shanghai, it looks beautiful like Toronto.

Blame it to VN leaderships because Vietnamese engineers have not been trained well and Vietnam don't have good architechs. Most good Viet Engineers don't come home after their graduation.

There are 2 major architechs in HCMC that built by foreigners, the Diamond plaza and the Prudential. The rest of HCMC landscape were buildings left behind by Nguyen Van Thieu. I went to see many construction sites in VN. By looking at their blueprints, I realized that most VN architetures were designed by Australian architechs. I found that people who take part in modernize VN facrory majority of them were South Korean. SK install heavy machinery in most VN factories. Last time when I was in HCMC, the Sheraton was being built.

HCMC is too crowded. It isn't good to build more building. They should save their money to enhance sewer system and roadways. Every moonsoon season , Saigon is flooded and created health problem to its inhabitants. Roadways are too narrow and make transportation difficult. Saigon has huge volume of mo-peds without emmision control, therefore the air quality is poorest among Asian cities.

I don't know why they need a tallest building. It's foolish.

I find it remotely interesting that you could compare the Indonesia to Vietnam. Do you know Indonesia sufficiently to even talk about it? Do you want me to give you a lecture on the Chinese settlement in Indonesia since the Time of the Qing Dynasty and the native Indonesians were still climbing on trees?


Well it's gonna be expensive but not as expensive compared to Bangkok, Singapore City, Hong Kong or Kuala Lumpur.

But as a matter of interest, the primary purpose of the building is to serve as the headquarter for Ben Thanh Tourist, and Vietcombank, and possibly Bonday.

Because it looks better with skylines, either that or they will look like an african country.

Don't underestimate the Chinese. They are quite clever. How do you think they also control Singapore as well?

Because Singapore is Chinese populated ? :S

Well you know Singapore or one of those countries built their country's biggest skyscraper in their style awhile back. They hired engineers from different countries to design a Skyscraper that was modern yet had some type of cultural style to it. It could work if viet govt used all their resources right. Plus, while the foreign engineers are working on it, the Viet engineers could recieve training during the building process. This would secure the Vietnamese style. Any more buildings they wanted built they could use their own engineers

The buildings are modern architecture, not western or eastern architecture.

It seems to me that certain people are expecting too much given what our Motherland has just gone through. It will take time before our construction companies are large enough to build more indigenous buildings, and it will take time to train Vietnamese architects and refine their skills.

Ho Chi Minh is NOT crowded, the whole city is over 1000 square kilometres. It's just that there are too many people living in the Central Business District (district 1 and adjacents). The government and the city authority is in the process of widening streets, clearing urban slums and civilian houses to use it for commercial purposes. Those who has been moved are given a sum of money to move to the outer region of the city.

Do you know that Vietnam labor laws require foreign companies to hire only Viet engineers? They can hire foreign engineering managers for 6 months with a condition, Viet Engineers are also hired to learn the job. I don't know if this laws is changed. Viet Engineers are cheaper however.

Yeah but there are a lot of Vietnamese with some Chinese ancestry. How do we know which ones are more loyal to Vietnam than China?

How do you know if PURE VIET ARE LOYAL to vietnam?

This building is originally planned to be built by a German construction company and to be named Windhorst Tower in 1996. However, the Asian financial crisis struck and the project was put on hold. This year Ben Thanh Tourist came into the scene and bought the German share and now they'll be financing the construction of the building, due to start later this year.

Hanoi is planning to build a 65 storey building, which I think will probably be around 300+ metres tall.

Well you gotta trust somebody.

my point

Tell me about it. In some HCMC districts, there are 60,000 inhabitants per square kilometer.

The population in HCMC is extimated as 9 millions. This is a conservative number. Vietnamese government is concerned about "illegal" residents in HCMC. Illegal residents are people who mgrated there but don't have "Ho Khau" or legal family document. One particular district called Binh Hung Hoa, the proportion of illegal residents are as high as 75%. You cannot move a mass population out of HCMC to make room for buildings without creating economic problem.

There are more problems in HCMC today than ever considered 2.5 out of 9 millions inhabitants are employed. That's 72.3% unemployment rate. The population also drives real estate price sky high. There are 14 major districts in HCMC, Quan 1-10, Binh Thanh, Phu Nhuan, Tan Binh & Go Vap. Not to mention normal residents, even most foreigners still cannot afford to buy house within those 14 districts. Shortage of water is another problem. HCMC is facing 30% of water shortage according to HCMC government.

I just have to say that building with destroy the HCMC skyline, just like how that stupid Taipei 101 sticks out like a sore thumb in the Taipei skyline (relatively short and more like a huge industrial city than your HKs, Tokyos, Seouls or Shanghais...all glitzy).

HCMC needs to consider these things:

1. Does it really need to this building, is it able to rent out the office space?

2. For that cost, they might as well build more apartment blocks or 10 smaller skyscrapers.

3. Will it look ridiciously out of place like Taipei 101? HCMC skyline is relatively short as well.

Just a note, there are heaps of skyscrapers with Asian designs, especially in China or more specifically, Beijing.

Asian countries are obesses with building a skyline these days. Just note that Japan is filthy rich yet Tokyo is a city built on a spawling design, that is horizontally outwards not like HK or New York which is built upwards (vertically designed).

*sigh*.

dude..u can't build that tall... only western style can

Creativity.

No, Bonday Ben Thanh will not look out of place since it is only 170+ metres tall. Saigon has already got a few buildings that are close to or over 100 metres in height, notably the Saigon Trade Center, which stands at 135 metres. Taipei is different since most buildings are no taller than 100 metres yet Taipei 101 is over 300 metres tall.

To answer your other questions:

1. Vietnamese office space is in high demand and predicted to accelerate in the upcoming years with the accession into the TWO and liberalisation of the economy etc.

2. It only cost USD55. It's better to build a nice and tall building than to build 2 small blocks. And no, USD55 won't buy you 10 smaller skyscrapers.

3. As explained above.

Well tall is beautiful, according to Asians. Besides, Saigon doesn't have all the space in the world so it should move upward, not outward. Besides, wouldn't it be more fun to have a more compacted and bustling city than having a huge city that requires alot of walking etc?

same here i agree. IT WOULD LOOK MUCH BETTER!!

I agree that there is no need for this. Vietnam's engineers are too incompetent.

OK well answered Quoc.

Err Saigon doesnt have space, neither does Tokyo...Japan is more crowded than Vietnam is.

Ermm no I am sick of Asians being cramped into apartment style homes and generally living in a city shoebox.

I prefer the layout of a Western style city - nice and spacious with lush green parks.

dude reputation are most important thing in asian people's life.. if u build all those short buildings, all the countries look at u as a patheic country

yea. i think thats been happening since we've become asians in asia... its always a competition with their neighboring countries and friends... they build something pretty, we have to do something better.. etc... my dad always have this kinda competition against my vietnamese neighbor. We always want a good reputation, so we won't look bad.

from the looks in the image, it looks cool, but what im wondering is how can this building cost only $55 million to construct??

Because it is 4 times shorter than the Empire State building. lol

yeah..it is short..

Labour in Vietnam is quite cheap.

the sears tower costs the japanese 1 billion to buy it, and it is only around 102 stories

Prime space in Chicago is EXPENSIVE.

Same here..that $hit sucks though as he wants to be as good or better in everything. Drives me nuts!

Well Asians need to build tall building to balance out their short d!cks.

I'm in agreement with fujisan. Saigon has a lot of space and still do, and just outside of Saigon there are even more space. Why not build outward, instead of cramming people into tiny apartments. Vietnamese people are not aware of pollution, they litter everywhere they go, living in a small, cramped, dirty city would be the last thing I want Saigon to become.

I always knew that you got short d!ck.