By WANG Yuhan

After a failed auction in July this year, the Shimao Shenkong International Center went back under the hammer today, with its price reduced by 2.6 billion yuan (US$360 million) to 10.4 billion yuan.

The online sale at JD.com’s auction platform closed at 10 am, having attracted an audience of 10,000 eager onlookers, but no bids.

After the first failure, gloomy insiders predicted that a second auction would end the same way. The market is not exactly awash with tens of billions of yuan, particularly not to buy a construction site that has already proved itself a massive liability. Ordinary enterprises are simply uninterested or unwilling to take them over. Those who could handle such a deal are mostly burdened by “international centers” of their own. The second unsuccessful auction was not unexpected.

The land alone was acquired for 24 billion yuan by Shimao at the end of 2017, the second-highest price in the history of Shenzhen’s land auctions.

Destined to become the "tallest building in China" at a height of 668 meters the integrated living and working environment of offices, large-scale commercial facilities and a variety of homes, never got off the ground.  The site of the “tallest building in China” is now covered with weeds among abandoned construction materials.