We construct two types of unital separable simple
$C^*$
-algebras:
$A_z^{C_1}$
and
$A_z^{C_2}$
, one exact but not amenable, the other nonexact. Both have the same Elliott invariant as the Jiang–Su algebra – namely,
$A_z^{C_i}$
has a unique tracial state,
$$ \begin{align*} \left(K_0\left(A_z^{C_i}\right), K_0\left(A_z^{C_i}\right)_+, \left[1_{A_z^{C_i}} \right]\right)=(\mathbb{Z}, \mathbb{Z}_+,1), \end{align*} $$
and
$K_{1}\left (A_z^{C_i}\right )=\{0\}$
(
$i=1,2$
). We show that
$A_z^{C_i}$
(
$i=1,2$
) is essentially tracially in the class of separable
${\mathscr Z}$
-stable
$C^*$
-algebras of nuclear dimension
$1$
.
$A_z^{C_i}$
has stable rank one, strict comparison for positive elements and no
$2$
-quasitrace other than the unique tracial state. We also produce models of unital separable simple nonexact (exact but not nuclear)
$C^*$
-algebras which are essentially tracially in the class of simple separable nuclear
${\mathscr Z}$
-stable
$C^*$
-algebras, and the models exhaust all possible weakly unperforated Elliott invariants. We also discuss some basic properties of essential tracial approximation.