The problem: The city insisted that the buyers first build a hugely expensive underground parking garage and seawall.

FORBES: On The Cover/Top Stories

The developer offered to build a 100-acre park and donate it to the city--if it got permits to build an underground parking garage, a nature center and an art museum.

FORBES: Scratch Builders

Part of the dispute revolved around a 750-space underground parking garage that WME would have had to share with a rival talent firm, the Gersh Agency, which had recently moved into a building next door.

WSJ: How Garage Stymied Hollywood Super Agent

He had to convince local officials to rezone the land from office to residential and build a giant wall, a half-mile long and 200 feet deep, to keep the Mediterranean from seeping into the underground parking garage.

FORBES: Second Empire

He had to convince local officials to rezone the land from office to residential and to build a giant wall, almost a kilometer long and 60 meters deep, to keep the Mediterranean from seeping into the underground parking garage.

FORBES: Second Empire

Soon Jacques Henric will go down to the underground parking garage and climb onto his Honda and venture out into the cold streets of Paris, becoming cold himself, a man who shapes his own destiny, and knows, or at least believes, that he is lucky.

NEWYORKER: Labyrinth

The site was originally intended to be a parking garage until construction uncovered a series of Roman ruins, now preserved in the underground Antiquarium museum.

BBC: Seville's threatened architectural heritage