Ho Chi Minh City construction report

This is the annual Ho Chi Minh City construction report, covering updates on major construction and transport projects over the last year (2024).

The HCMC Metro opens and the era of the Transport Oriented Development (TOD) begins

The highlight of 2024 in Ho Chi Minh City was the opening of the first metro line. Construction of Line 1 of the HCMC Metro began in August 2012, and it was initially planned to be finished by 2018. I have been watching it being built since 2012, so I was happy to finally see it open.

I will be doing a separate review of the metro with updates on future lines. For this report, I am covering the construction projects near each station.

After the metro opened, I visited every station on the line (14 stations). I’m putting together a guide for the metro stations, and I also wanted to take an inventory of apartment buildings within a 10-minute walk of each station.

There has already been an apartment boom near the three stations in former District 2 (now part of Thu Duc City). The area near Thao Dien, An Phu, and Rach Chiec stations has apartments near each station. I know people who have bought or rented here as far back as 2016, expecting the metro to be open soon, so they are now finally enjoying the benefit of being near a metro station.

There are fewer apartments near the stations between Phuoc Long and Suoi Tien Terminal. I’m curious to see how this corridor will develop in the years to come. I have been watching Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok become a canyon of apartment towers along the BTS Skytrain. There are no other lines under construction yet, so areas near the stations of Line 1 will become more developed.

The first apartment to sell itself as being convenient to the metro is the Metro Star project near Binh Thai Station.

The project includes a shopping mall with a cinema. The complex is next to the pedestrian bridge to the station, so it could be completely integrated with a walkway into the mall section.

There is a showroom for the project in District 3 with a scale model of the project.

Work had begun on the project and it had enough time to be completed before the metro opened. The project has since stalled, so they missed an opportunity to be ready for opening day.

Another project that is selling the benefit of being near the metro is The 9 Stellars. There have been billboards around the city selling it as a transit-oriented development.

The 9 Stellars is near Suoi Tien Terminal Station at the end of the line. I walked to the project area to see how far it was from the station, and it was under 10 minutes. It’s a rough walk though as many of the streets are broken and dusty. I will assume that this area will be landscaped once the project is finished.

The website says “it takes The 9 Stellars residents only 2 minutes to get to the Metro station and a few minutes to District 1 and other central districts.” It would be 2 minutes by motorbike, and it is over half an hour by metro to District 1. It’s always good to check these details for yourself before buying property.

Projects under construction

Here are some of the most prominent projects under construction in Ho Chi Minh City.

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