Can anyone comment about how common this (apparently legal) practice is?
MBAs gotta have something to do.
Setting up a separate company for a major construction project is so common that it would be surprising to hear someone didn’t do it. The structure of the OP makes it hard to understand if there’s some more specific aspect he’s objecting to.
About as common as breathing.
A couple thousand of them in the US https://carta.com/data/spv-spotlight-q3-2024/