The project covers more than 9.3 hectares taking in the park and the Ben Thanh underground station, as proposed by VinSpeed, the rail company under conglomerate Vingroup, whose chairman Pham Nhat Vuong is the richest person in Vietnam and Southeast Asia with a net worth at about $33 billion according to Forbes.
The first of two subzones would hold an underground complex of up to four levels totaling nearly 318,000 sq.m of floor space.
Retail, services and amenities would take almost 145,000 sq.m of that, parking about 147,000 sq.m. The rest would go to the station, offices, an operations center and technical rooms.
The mall would sit immediately below the park, opening onto the station, the parking levels and a network of entrances.
Plans call for shops, restaurants, entertainment venues and public amenities, with skylights and planting to carry daylight and air underground.
Parking would fill the levels beneath the retail floors, with smart management, charging stations and related facilities, adding downtown capacity to pull cars off the streets.
Emergency exits and fire suppression would run through the complex as a single system.
The second subzone, the existing Ben Thanh underground station, would proceed as a separate project.
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A rendering of a shopping center underground in central Ho Chi Minh City. Photo courtesy of the Institute of Urban Planning and Architecture |
Above ground, September 23 Park stays public, with any structure capped at a single story. Green space accounts for more than 87,400 sq.m of the site, roads and walkways more than 5,600 sq.m.
The park sits in the core of downtown Ho Chi Minh City, beside Ben Thanh Market, Quach Thi Trang Square and the Le Loi and Le Lai thoroughfares.
It also holds Metro Line No. 1’s Ben Thanh station, which opened in December 2024 and is planned as the interchange for several future urban rail lines.
The city had planned a roughly 45,000 sq.m underground shopping center on the neighboring site, beneath Quach Thi Trang Square and a 500 m stretch of Le Loi running from Ben Thanh Market to the Municipal Theatre.
Budgeted at nearly VND8.4 trillion ($320 million), close to 60% of it in official development assistance loans, that project stalled for years.
The revised Ho Chi Minh City master plan through 2040, with a vision to 2060, designates September 23 Park for commercial space tied to downtown parking and linked to urban rail stations and nearby buildings.
The 1:2,000 zoning plan for the area also allows underground walkways, parking and a shopping center below the park.
The city has cleared VinSpeed to draw up a 1:500 detailed plan for the park site around underground development.
VinSpeed, founded in May 2025, is building the Ben Thanh-Can Gio metro line, which broke ground on Dec. 19.