Oriental Plaza, the scandal shrouded shopping, residential and office complex on Beijing's central Changan Avenue, will come on stream just in time to make a significant contribution to the glut of property in the capital.
The US$2 billion development, headed by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong (Holdings), is taking shape under an army of construction labourers working round the clock on the huge site between Dongdan and Wangfujing in the prime central area.
It will comprise eight grade-A office towers, two blocks of serviced apartments, a retail podium and a five-star hotel. A subway station under the complex will be completed next year.
The complex has survived its chief facilitator, former Beijing mayor Chen Xitong, who was sentenced to 16 years jail last August on fraud charges. In the minds of many Beijing citizens, Chen's misdeeds are associated strongly with Oriental Plaza - as well as the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy crackdown, of which he was a strong supporter.
The former mayor sold the site to Cheung Kong in 1992 and pressured residents and businesses in the area - including the world's biggest McDonald's outlet - to make way for the enormous construction project, which outraged historians and conservationists, and even breached Beijing's planning rules.
It is easy to see why staff in the project's Beijing offices aren't allowed to talk about it. Now work is racing ahead and the spin-offs for subcontractors are lucrative.