A prominent piece of New York City real estate is kept vacant by a shadowy Chinese billionaire who goes by as many as seven different aliases.
If New Yorkers resent overseas “investment” in their city, it’s because of situations like the one at 23 Wall St., a mystery that stretches from Houston to Angola to Beijing.
The billionaire in question is one Sam Pa, an elusive figure as colorful as a James Bond arch-villain. No matter what name he uses, he has a taste for women and fast cars — though he might not be seen or heard from again for a long time to come.
The globe-trotting Pa was busted two months ago by Communist Party authorities probing corruption in China’s energy industry. His arrest casts a new cloud over 23 Wall St., which is owned by a company Pa controls and has stood dark since 2003.
The 101-year-old landmark at the corner of Wall and Broad streets is the ghost ship of a district which has filled with new residents, stores and hotels. The ruinously neglected, original home of J.P. Morgan & Co. now sports tacky ads on its noble windows. It stands at a location which a real estate executive described to The Post’s Lois Weiss as the “Times Square” of the Financial District.
But 23 Wall will likely stay dark for even longer. Before Pa was arrested, a plan to lease it to multimedia firm Latitude 360 fell through, The Post has learned.
The triangular, low-slung building across the street from the New York Stock Exchange has seen little human activity, except for occasional “raw space” events and film shoots, since 2003, when real estate firm Africa-Israel bought it from the bank.
Africa-Israel at least had a local track record — it converted 15 Broad St. next door from offices to condos. But in 2008, it sold 23 Wall for $150 million to murky Hong Kong-based China Sonangol.
Since then, “Their heart’s never really been in finding a tenant,” said one of many frustrated real estate insiders.
Sonangol is an “investment vehicle” of 88 Queensway, an octopus-like “trans-national network of over 60 interlocking companies” in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, as the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity called it. Although officially a “consultant,” Pa is understood to control 88 Queensway and Sonangol.
Pa’s whereabouts since his arrest are unknown. A woman who answered the phone at Sonangol’s US offices in Houston said, “No one is allowed to say anything. Everything has to go through Angola.” The phone number we were given in the West African nation did not work.
Why Angola? Sonangol pumps oil there and sells it to China.
But 23 Wall St. is its only US real estate investment. Manhattan commercial brokers say the former banking fortress’ 130,000 square feet are useless for anything other than an event venue. But to turn it into a true party palace would require tens of millions of dollars of upgrades.
So why would real estate-savvy Sonangol waste $150 million on a white elephant in New York?
Sources spun a maze of tantalizing scenarios. Among them: that Pa bought 23 Wall as a favor to former business partner Lev Leviev. According to the yarn, Sonangol somehow thought it was buying the much more valuable Madison Square Clock Tower.
Real estate pros scoffed at the idea Sonangol could mistakenly buy the wrong building. But they stopped short of calling it impossible, given Sonangol’s unfamiliarity with Manhattan and Pa’s opaque business practices.
And it’s hardly more improbable than a landmark at the heart of the city’s most dynamic neighborhood staying dark forever.