There are a lot of construction projects that get halfway finished and then the developers just walk away from it for various reasons but the Sathorn Unique is well, unique in that it is so huge and the owners walked away amid some pretty terrible accusations that they were eventually acquitted of. The construction was halted 20 years ago or so, yet the structure remains on site that was never finshed.
The idea was that this was going to be luxury high-rise accommodation for Bangkok's elite. But construction just stopped and now it is known by many as the "ghost tower."
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there is a fence around it and some amount of security but people end up getting inside of it all the time. Mostly they are there as urban explorers and even some thrill seekers who enjoy jumping from balcony to balcony hundreds of feet off the ground. I had intended to go inside of it but in the end I didn't have the balls to jump the fence when the time came. I think a local guide might have been helpful but I don't have it in me to do this, plus I don't need to give the authorities a reason to want to deport me so the stakes are a bit higher for me than it would be for a local Thai person or a tourist.
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It is a rather imposing and ominous structure though and throughout the years many people have gotten inside and basically the entire thing is covered in graffiti.
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I guess I don't have a problem with that because as long as they aren't hurting anyone it appears as though the owner doesn't have any intention of finishing the job. There are rumors that the building was built on top of some sort of burial ground and it is cursed. People in Thailand tend to believe in this sort of ghost stuff a lot more than we do in the west so perhaps they really can't sell this because the affluent wouldn't buy it. It could make for a good sale to people who enjoy the macabre though.
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There was one person that died or was killed in this building and that just adds fuel to the rumors of it being haunted. It was 2014 and a Swedish guy was found hung on the 43rd floor.
The owner will pop into the news every now and then complaining about the amount of people that see this as a tourist attraction but honestly, it would be easy enough to keep people out if he really wanted to accomplish that. you would need to only take out the staircases on the bottom two floors and voila, problem solved.
I think that he and his family don't really care and wouldn't be subjected to any liability of someone did fall and die. This isn't America, you can't sue other people in Thailand for your own stupidity and clumsiness.
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For years the only real commercial purpose of this building has been to hang giant advertisements off of it and this by itself is rather impressive to me. How do you even make something that big? Where are the printers?
I hope one day to be able to enter this building but for now I have only ever seen it from the street level. Maybe one day once I am revisiting on a tourist visa I will do a little trespassing of my own.