The plot encompassing 2, 4 and 6 Hai Ba Trung Street also has facades facing Thi Sach Street, Dong Du Street and Me Linh Square.
It remains unused after a land mismanagement lawsuit was filed against former Industry and Trade Minister Vu Huy Hoang and accomplices for making the public land private through illegal means.
Now overgrown with weeds, the property is fenced off with parts of the sidewalk outside it used as parking spots.
In 2022, it was transferred to the Land Fund Development Center belonging to the city Department of Natural Resources and Environment, but no development plans have been announced.
A kilometer away is another unused land plot, measuring 9,000 square meters, at the corner of Nguyen Hue and Le Loi streets.
It used to be the site of the Saigon Tax Trade Centre, once the city’s most bustling shopping center and around for 130 years until it was closed in 2016 to make room for a commercial, amusement, office, and hotel complex with its basement connected to a metro line No.1 station.
But due to some legal issues, nothing has happened since.
It is now used mostly as storage space by nearby food stalls and restaurants.
Recently the district administration proposed turning it into a parking lot for people visiting the statue of President Ho Chi Minh, Nguyen Hue pedestrian plaza and Bach Dang Wharf.
These attractions get 2,000 visitors on weekdays and double or triple that during weekends and holidays, but there are not many parking lots in the vicinity, resulting in frequent traffic snarls.
A short distance away is a 3,800-sq-m plot with four facades.
It was earmarked for construction of the SJC Tower project, a 208-meter-high commercial complex with 54 floors and six basements.
It was approved in 2007 at a cost of US$211.5 million (VND5.3 trillion), but construction never began.
In 2015 the city investigated the delay, but nothing came of it.
It is barricaded and currently used as a parking lot.
Directly opposite Ben Thanh Market is a four-façade land plot with the concrete skeleton of the Spirit of Saigon building. It was to have consisted of a 55-story tower, an office-hotel complex, a 48-story east tower, and an apartment-hotel complex.
It managed to raise $500 million and was lauded as a “megaproject” in the real estate market.
It changed hands several times with two of its previous owners connected to investment firm Van Thinh Phat, whose chairwoman Truong My Lan has been accused of manipulating lender SCB in order to appropriate VND304 trillion ($12.53 billion) from its customers.
Barricaded and abandoned except for some untouched building materials, its fate is unclear.
A “golden” area totaling 6,300 square meters at 33 Nguyen Du Street and 34, 36 and 42 Chu Manh Trinh Street comprises four smaller plots and was handed over in 2015 to state-owned rice trader Vinafood 2 by the city people’s committee.
The plots were then fell into private ownership through mismanagement by the company.
Last year the city took them back and tasked the Land Fund Development Center with managing and developing them.
A few houses there are still in use but most of the area is used as a makeshift parking lot.
The four-façade plot at 8, 10 and 12 Le Duan Street, next door to the Diamond Plaza shopping center and opposite the District 1 people's committee office, has remained undeveloped for years and is used as a parking lot.
It was supposed to be used for the Lavenue Crown project, a 36-story five-star hotel and shopping mall.
But it was stalled by a land mismanagement lawsuit against former city deputy chairman Nguyen Thanh Tai, who awarded the project to a joint stock company without a bidding process.
The Phan Dinh Phung Stadium in District 3 on the border with District 1 and extremely close to the city center was demolished to make way for a new stadium in 2008.
It was to be a BT (build-transfer) project done by private property developer Phat Dat Corporation and the Compensation Clearance Corporation in two years.
But the work never began since for public-private projects the old regulation was to pay the private partner in the form of land, and the city is yet to identify the plot to be handed over to Phat Dat.
Part of the 14,400-sq-m plot is used to store building materials and equipment and the rest is covered by weeds.
It has barricades surrounding it, and parts of the sidewalk outside are used to line up garbage bins.
According to the District 1 people's committee, there are 26 prime land plots totaling tens of thousands of square meters in the district remaining undeveloped.
At the annual meeting earlier this month of the city people’s council, the legislature, Phan Van Mai, chairman of the people’s committee, said plans would be announced soon to temporarily use these prime plots until the original projects resume.
