Fans of Ferris wheels will be disappointed as the project to build the world's tallest Ferris wheel in Shanghai has been canceled, replacing it with an office high-rise, Shanghai Morning Post reported Wednesday.

The design for the Shanghai Star Ferris Wheel project, which was set to be the highest ferris wheel in the world. [File Photo: Xinhua]

The Shanghai Star Ferris wheel was to stand 200 to 230 meters above its Hongkou District neighborhood, beating the London Eye, which sits 135 meters above the ground and holds the world's height title.

However, "the project proved to be unfeasible as it is a contravention against the designated function of the land, which is to offer shipping services," an official with the development office of the Shanghai north Bund told the newspaper Wednesday.

A Hangzhou-based private real-estate developer won the rights in April 2005 to buy the plot reserved for the amusement ride for 1.46 billion yuan, the highest price ever paid for the city's land at that time.

The high-flying wheel was scheduled to serve as an anchor for an entertainment and commercial complex that was expected to attract millions of visitors to the Huangpu River location every year -- and join the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and the Jin Mao building as Shanghai's prime skyline icons.

"The city's planning authority now has a new plan for the land," said the official. "A one-hundred-meter high office building."

But the future of the land is still in limbo as the Shanghai Municipal Housing, Land and Resource Administration Bureau is waiting for a developer for the 35,210-square-meter plot, said the official.