Considering I've only just started playing and never took part of the PO this doesn't really answer my question
At any rate, 3 blocks from the failed building I have a completed Empire State building, so...
I did do something different between the two landmarks, on the first (30 St Mary) I just bought all the tokens needed from Omnicorp (playing Sandbox)
With the Empire, I let the extra tokens do the work and slowly build it.
I'll go test!
Edit:
30 ST Mary Axe
405 Lexington Avenue
Chichen Itza
Rijskmuseum
Tokyo Tower
All of these only have 2 phases and can't be completed.
In addition, I found out that when you select a landmark to place and then click on that icon on the bottom left the UI gets totally crazy, the right and left menus disappear and you can't open/close anything....