New York Wheel raises nearly $150M through EB-5 program

The 630-foot-tall structure will roughly be $500 million to build

New York Wheel
Rendering of the New York Wheel on Staten Island

UPDATED, 1:06 a.m., July 11: The New York Wheel is close to raising all the money it needs to construct the world’s largest Ferris wheel on Staten Island. Of the $500 million the company needs to build it, $150 million will be funded through the EB-5 program.

Roughly 300 Chinese families have raised the money through the program with which they hope to obtain U.S. visas, the New York Times reported. The federal visa program offers a green card and potential citizenship to foreign investors in exchange for an economic investment in the U.S. that is larger than $500,000.

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The wheel will be located right by a 350,000-square-foot outlet mall, for which construction began in April. The BFC Partners-developed mall is set to open in 2017, according to the newspaper. [NYT] Claire Moses

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the size of the mall. It will span 350,000 square feet.