A luxury residential project targeting the crypto rich may be in trouble.
According to a report from The Times on Sunday, the Aston Plaza project in Dubai – launched in 2017 by high-profile U.K. entrepreneurs Baroness Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman – appears to have stalled, with its website still displaying the project as “25 percent complete,” the same figure as used in its marketing materials.
Aston Plaza plan was unveiled in September 2017. Said at the time to be costing £250 million ($323 million) to build, the two-tower complex was to feature 1,133 luxury apartments over 2.4 million square feet, with each flat costing between $133,000 and $379,000 in bitcoin.
According to The Times, government inspectors visited the construction site in January 2018 and declared the project as “on hold.” Construction, planned for completion by this summer, is no longer underway, according to the report.
Baroness Mone is also a lingerie designer and peer of the U.K.’s House of Lords, while Barrowman, her life and business partner, is a business mogul and founder of private equity firm Aston Ventures. Together, the two launched the real estate project specifically targeting the blockchain and crypto community.
Barrowman told CoinDesk at the time that he felt the venture was the perfect opportunity for bitcoin investors to convert their holdings into “real brick-and-mortar” assets.
He also said in a statement at the time:
“I wanted to offer the property, tech and blockchain community a unique and exclusive opportunity by merging the property and tech sectors together in a true first for the industry.”
The project was accepting payments in bitcoin through U.S.-based cryptocurrency payments processor BitPay.
Aston Plaza project image courtesy of the company