A tower that pierces the clouds, or a monument to the city’s past
The tower can be seen from almost anywhere in Kaohsiung.
It is said to have been designed in the shape of the character for “high.”
The 85 Sky Tower once claimed the title of the tallest building in Taiwan.
Seen from afar, it still appears to rule the harbor city.
But standing at its base, a different impression emerges.
There is an unusual stillness.
The elevators to the observation deck no longer run.
The former department store floors are sealed off.
Inside the massive structure, the lower levels have hollowed out.
The middle floors remain suspended between purposes, accumulating only time.
The cause of this condition is not concrete fatigue.
It is the severing of invisible arteries called ownership.
The illness of failed governance
The tower was once the dream of the Tuntex Group, a vision of an Asian skyscraper.
When the group collapsed in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis, the solution chosen was simple and cruel.
The building was sold off in pieces.
Floors, and sometimes individual units, were liquidated to cover debts.
The result was a vertical community with thousands of owners and no effective means of coordination.
Even if someone wished to repair or redevelop, consensus was unreachable.
This was a classic tragedy of the commons applied to real estate.
A building still standing, yet no longer alive.
The shortest path to becoming a zombie.
Three remedies the world has tried
Other cities have faced similar failures—super-tall buildings sliding into dysfunction.
Their responses tend to fall into three broad categories.
Re-centralization by force
Johannesburg’s Ponte City
Ponte City, a cylindrical high-rise built in the 1970s, once symbolized modern Johannesburg.
After apartheid ended, crime and illegal occupation spread through the building.
The response was blunt.
A developer, backed by capital, bought back individual units one by one.
Ownership was consolidated under a single entity.
Democratic consensus was abandoned in favor of speed and execution.
Rights were recovered through force of capital, and the building was reassembled as one.
Overwriting through aesthetics
London’s Trellick Tower
Trellick Tower in west London was long associated with crime and neglect.
A brutalist housing block few wanted to approach.
As architectural values shifted, its raw concrete form was reinterpreted.
What had once been a liability became cultural capital.
Without changing the structure, the meaning was rewritten.
The building turned into a status symbol for those who admired its design.
Enforcement by law
Japan’s condominium legislation
In Japan, laws exist to address aging condominium buildings trapped by fractured ownership.
The Act on Facilitation of Reconstruction allows redevelopment through supermajority votes.
The illusion of unanimous consent is set aside.
The state intervenes where private agreement stalls.
Law replaces paralysis.
The fourth path Kaohsiung has taken
So which path has the 85 Sky Tower followed?
None of them.
Or more precisely, none could be fully chosen.
What is unfolding here is not a dramatic revival.
Police presence has reduced illegal activity.
The Hi-Lai Group has acquired some upper floors through auctions.
The city has installed startup facilities inside the tower.
Security, capital, industry.
These elements are combined in a quiet, grinding campaign with no clear endpoint.
There is no miracle solution.
Decayed parts are slowly removed.
Healthier functions are cautiously introduced.
It resembles life support more than rebirth.
A monument to failure, or a laboratory for renewal
On the 19th floor, a startup hub now houses young companies working on AI and IoT.
Where speculative dreams once accumulated, digital ventures attempt to take root.
The tower is not simply a failed project.
It is a three-dimensional case study in how a city deals with the aftermath of rapid growth.
A problem Kaohsiung cannot avoid.
Whether this structure will shine again, or remain quietly dormant, is still uncertain.
The answer has not yet been written into any deed.
