Masterise revives decade-long half-finished towers in downtown Ho Chi Minh City

[HO CHI MINH CITY] Masterise Homes, a member of Masterise Group, has launched a long-delayed mixed-use project in central Ho Chi Minh City that was previously linked to jailed property tycoon Truong My Lan.

The move revives one of the country’s most high-profile unfinished developments on prime urban land.

The pair of towers, now rebranded as One Central Saigon, first broke ground in 2012 and remained partially completed for more than a decade until construction activity resumed last year.

It sits on a rare four-frontage site of 8,537 square metres (sq m), directly opposite Ben Thanh Market, one of Ho Chi Minh City’s most iconic and busiest heritage landmarks in the downtown core.

The revived project will have residential, hotel, office and retail components, and is being positioned as an ultra-luxury development.

It will mark the debut of the Ritz-Carlton hotel brand in Vietnam, alongside Ritz-Carlton Residences, Saigon, which will target high-net-worth individuals.

It will also include nearly 20,000 sq m of commercial space and direct underground access to Ben Thanh metro station, linking the complex to the city’s expanding transit network.

“Large gap” for high-end segment

“Ho Chi Minh City’s market already has too many high-end projects, but there remains a very large gap for ultra-luxury developments,” Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong, managing director for the southern region at Masterise Group, said at the project launch on Wednesday (May 13).

“Ultra-luxury projects require very significant investment; it is not only a matter of economics and standards, but it is also about vision, and the cultural spirit that it brings.”

SEE ALSO

New airports, high-speed rails, Olympic complex: Vietnam shifts into top gear

Vietnam bank to sell mogul’s property, car to offset fraud loss

Vietnam beckons Malaysia’s property bigwigs with urban boom, reforms and rapid growth

This positioning is reinforced by the project’s location opposite Ben Thanh Market, which Phuong described as “an absolute advantage”, noting that comparable sites are now virtually impossible to secure in the city’s central business district.

The developer has not disclosed a completion timeline for the project, which had its implementation deadline extended by the authorities in October 2025 for four years.

The project resurfaced during Truong My Lan’s 2024 trial, when prosecutors said its original investor Bitexco Group – the owner of another tower that is among the tallest in Ho Chi Minh City – had agreed in 2018 to transfer the development to Lan’s Van Thinh Phat Group, though the deal was never completed after Lan’s arrest in 2022.

Founded in 2007 as Thao Dien Investment before rebranding in 2019, Masterise has emerged as one of Vietnam’s most aggressive luxury developers, particularly in downtown Ho Chi Minh City.

The company is best known for Grand Marina Saigon – a Marriott and JW Marriott-branded residential complex built on the former Ba Son shipyard site – which has been marketed as the world’s largest Marriott-branded residential development.

In recent years, Masterise – an affiliate of Vietnam’s private lender Techcombank – has increasingly positioned itself as an emerging participant in Vietnam’s infrastructure push. This has come through its involvement in the development of Gia Binh Airport in northern Vietnam and a feasibility study of Metro No 3 in Ho Chi Minh City.