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China will build replacement for Gensler soccer stadium design in Guangzhou following Evergrande debt scramble

2024-03-19T11:51:00-04:00

Chinese state-owned construction contractor will build China’s largest soccer park in Guangzhou on the site where struggling Chinese property developer China Evergrande Group was supposed to build its soccer stadium. China Construction Fourth Engineering Division won the engineering procurement construction contract to build the Guangzhou Football Park with a CNY2.4 billion (USD328 million) bid, the unit of China State Construction Engineering announced on its official WeChat account yesterday.

The site was originally meant for a 100,000-seat stadium designed by Gensler. Evergrande, the developer now embroiled in a Lehman Brothers-like freefall, had already begun construction before the project was halted and eventually taken over by the government in 2021. The new design from the Guangdong Architectural Design and Research Institute has a reduced capacity of 73.000, making it still the largest soccer-only stadium in China.

Previously on Archinect: One of China's largest property developers is roiled in a Lehman-esque debt spiral

The estimated cost of the original design it replaces was $1.7 billion. Gensler, meanwhile, has begun preliminary work assessing the potential for a new stadium on the site of a disused Westfield shopping center in its hometown of San Francisco.

China Evergrande ordered into liquidation after $300 billion debt spiral

2024-01-30T19:15:00-05:00

A court in Hong Kong has ordered the winding up of Evergrande Group, the world’s most indebted property developer, dealing another blow to investor confidence as China’s ailing real estate sector continues to weigh on its economy. The liquidation order, made by the city’s High Court on Monday, comes after the embattled Chinese real estate giant and its overseas creditors failed to agree on how to restructure the company’s massive debt during talks that lasted for 19 months.

Evergrande’s liquidation could also set the stage for an unprecedented political showdown between Hong Kong and the mainland, as Reuters speculated on Monday.

The company had amassed over $300 billion in public and private debts since being ordered into negotiations in 2021. Overseas creditors are currently owed a reported $25 billion. Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, was one of several experts to compare its collapse to the failure of Lehman Brothers in the American market in 2008.

39 buildings on a massive Chinese manmade island have been ordered to be demolished

2022-01-04T20:31:00-05:00

Evergrande Group, the world’s most indebted developer, was last week ordered to demolish 39 buildings on Ocean Flower Island, a project comprising three man-made islands developed by the company in China’s southern Hainan province, within 10 days.

The developer was recently forced to hand over control of its $1.7B football stadium in Guangzhou after spending much of the past year attempting to stave off creditors looking to collect on the company’s reported $310 billion in liabilities, which has recently led to another round of public protests.

The massive development in Hainan province is one of the world’s largest manmade islands and has been the recipient of over $13 billion in Evergrande funds since breaking ground in 2015. The recent order by the Danzhou municipal government stated that Evergrande had illegally obtained building permits to the 435,000-square-meters of development in question, and follows up on a November promise from the city to sell any properties owned by the overleveraged company, according to a report in The Guardian.

Chinese government takes control of incomplete, $1.7 billion Evergrande Guangzhou Football Stadium

2021-12-06T19:11:00-05:00

Chinese authorities have taken over the Gensler-designed, under-construction Evergrande Guangzhou Football Stadium, commissioned by indebted property developer Evergrande, which was due to become the world’s largest football stadium by capacity, according to Reuters.

The Chinese government will either sell or take over the stadium via the state-owned Guangzhou City Construction Investment Group. As reported by Reuters, construction on the stadium has been halted for at least three months, in which Evergrande has been struggling to meet repayments on over $300 billion of debt.

Previously on Archinect: One of China's largest property developers is roiled in a Lehman-esque debt spiral

The Gensler-designed, 100,000-capacity soccer stadium was planned to be the home ground for professional club Guangzhou Evergrande. Work on the arena began in April 2020, with an estimated cost of $1.7 billion. It was set for completion by the end of 2022.

One of China's largest property developers is roiled in a Lehman-esque debt spiral

2021-10-19T16:54:00-04:00

Worries about the giant developer’s ability to repay its debt and a total of $300 billion in liabilities have put global investors on edge. Beyond the company itself, there are worries about a potential spillover into the rest of China’s real estate industry or economy.

Evegrande missed another round of payments last Monday, setting it back again ahead of Wednesday’s scheduled $47.5 million interest payment. Investors are blindly looking for a government bailout, but financial experts remain uncertain as to its prospects. The company says it plans to go forward with a 12 billion yuan ($1.86 billion) football stadium project from Gensler in spite of the huge debts it owes to more than 250 different institutions worldwide.

Evergrande was recently behind the financing for Harvard GSD’s HouseZero initiative. Currently, the company has an estimated 800 projects underway in mainland China in addition to plans announced earlier in the year that would provide 268 individual units in a $4 billion “Versailles-like” villa along Hong Kong’s Yueng Long wetland.