My World Earth: Dubai's Khalifa Tower, World's Tallest Building, Opens with Fanfare

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Dubai's Khalifa Tower, World's Tallest Building, Opens with Fanfare

High life: The Burj Dubai stands at 160 storeys tall and is the tallest building in the world

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Dwarfed: Dubai's spectacular skyscrapers look tiny compared to the Burj Tower which is over half a mile high

Don't look down!: A Dubai man takes in the view from the 124th floor

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As the tallest building in the world opened to great fanfair in Dubai yesterday, the struggling emirate was well aware that it owed a big thank you to its oil rich neighbour.

The thanks came in the form of a naming ceremony, Dubai's ruler renamed the previously-known Burj Dubai the Burj Khalifa.

Just last month the tower's namesake and leader of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan, bailed out indebted Dubai to the tune of $10bn - £6.13bn.
Now the needle-shaped skyscraper which stands more than 800 metres tall and can be seen from 95 kilometres away and was to be the jewel in Dubai's crown, is a stark reminder of the debt the emirate owes its neighbour.

Construction of the tower began in 2004 at the height of Dubai's boom, but in the last month building has ground to halt across the emirate as funds dry up.

But, although much of the office space in the tower remains empty and many parts of the building are not yet finished, owners of the Burj Khalifa are determined it will stand for the luxury and excess Dubai has become known for.

The building boasts the world's first Armani hotel on the bottom floors, it also houses 900 Dubai residences, 37 floors of office space, a fine dining restaurant and an observation deck.

The structure, whose final height was revealed yesterday to be 828m, is far taller than the previous record holder, Taipei 101 and brings records galore to the UAE.

As well as being the tallest building in the world, it also has the most stories and highest occupied floor of any building in the world, and ranks as the world's tallest structure. Visitors can look out from the highest observation deck in the world on the 124th floor.

We weren't sure how high we could go,' said Bill Baker, the building's structural engineer. 'It was kind of an exploration...a learning experience.'

The tower itself is reported to have cost $1.5 billion - £925 million - and the celebration of a laser show and fireworks seemingly shooting out of the building itself, was a suitable grand way to welcome its opening.

Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum led the official opening which saw VIPs able to access the observation deck on the 124th floor.

To ignite oublic interest in the tower, its owner have released some facts and figures about the amount of work and materials that went into its construction.

The tower's glass and steel exterior would apparently cover 17 football fields if laid out flat and will take some poor workers between six and eight weeks to clean.

The concrete used in the core of the building could build a pavement 1,283 miles long and the cooling system produces enough condensation to fill 20 Olympic swimming pools a year. It's a good thing those eco-conscious developers will be using the waste to water the grounds.

Work on the Burj Dubai began in 2004 and continued rapidly. At times, new floors were being added almost every three days, reflecting Dubai's raging push to reshape itself over a few years from a small-time desert outpost into a cosmopolitan urban giant packed with skyscrapers.

By January 2007, thousands of laborers, many of them brought in on temporary contracts from India, had completed 100 stories.

To ensure the tower doesn't twist or break during bad weather, it is built in a Y-shape, with three 'wings' evenly distributing the building's weight.

Started at the height of the economic boom and built by some 12,000 laborers, the world's tallest building will open on Monday in Dubai as the glitzy emirate seeks to rekindle optimism after its financial crisis.

Burj Dubai, whose opening has been delayed twice since construction began in 2004, will mark another milestone for the deeply indebted emirate with a penchant for seeking new records.

Dubai, one of seven members of the United Arab Emirates, gained a reputation for excess with the creation of man-made islands shaped like palms and an indoor ski slope in the desert.

With investor confidence in Dubai badly bruised by the emirate's announcement in November that it would seek a debt standstill for one of its largest conglomerates, the Burj Dubai is seen as a positive start to the year after a bleak 2009.

The project has been scrutinized by human rights groups, who have objected to its treatment of laborers, as well as by environmentalists who said the tower would act as a power vacuum, increasing the city's already massive carbon footprint.

But despite the criticism, many say the edifice, believed to have cost $1.5 billion to build, is an architectural marvel.

The tower's height has been kept a closely guarded secret until now. Developer Emaar Properties PJSC will reveal the height -- known to exceed 800 meters (2,625 feet) -- on Tuesday and Dubai's ruler will inaugurate the opening.

Experts believe Dubai's recent financial troubles have not hurt sales of approximately 1,100 residential units in the Burj -- meaning tower in Arabic -- saying they were nearly all sold.

Dubai's real estate sector crashed at the end of 2008 when the global financial crisis hit the emirate after a six-year economic boom. Thousands of jobs were slashed and projects worth billions of dollars were canceled or delayed.

With analysts suggesting tax-free Dubai might sell some of its assets to boost revenues and slash $80 billion in debt, many wondered if the tower was on the list for grabs.

Dubai, with few natural resources of its own, expects a budget deficit of 2 percent of GDP this year.

In December, the emirate received a $10 billion lifeline from neighboring Abu Dhabi to repay a $4.1 billion bond for Nakheel, a property arm of indebted Dubai World, and other obligations.

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