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Design unveiled for new world's tallest tower
Nakheel is to trump rival Emaar Properties in the contest to build the world's tallest building, with the Dubai-owned developer on Sunday unveiling plans for a tower that will dwarf the Burj Dubai.
Nakheel is poised to build a tower that will be more than one kilometre high, as part of a 140 billion-dirham ($38.12 billion) project that will include the world’s first inner city harbour, company executives said.
Emaar's Burj Dubai, currently the tallest man made structure in the world at over 630 metres, is expected to be up to 900 metres tall upon completion in early 2009. The company has refused to reveal its final height.
At a launch event on Sunday night, Hollywood movie stars Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones joined company officials and local dignitaries as a huge model of the structure was revealed.
"It will be ambitious, creative and innovative," chief executive Chris O’Donnell said of the Nakheel Harbour & Tower, which will be funded through a combination of private land sales and other project financing.
The development, located at the intersection of Sheikh Zayed Road and the $11 billion Arabian Canal currently under construction, will cover an area of more than 270 hectares and eventually house more than 55,000 people.
"It is four towers contained in a single structure connected by sky bridges,” O’Donnell said.
Nakheel said the project will take more than 10 years to complete, but with some stages coming on line much earlier.
It will include 19,000 residential apartments, ranging from affordable family homes to exclusive penthouses, it said.
High speed shuttle lifts will enable visitors to see the sunset twice, from the bottom and again from the top of the tower, it added.
Sources at Australian architects Woods Bagot told Arabian Business in April that Nakheel was planning to build a 1,200-metre high tower on the Arabian Canal.
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Comments 1-10 of 10
Posted by Khalid Husain, Torrance, USA on 8 October 2008 at 10:25 UAE time
Its good to see how Dubai has set the benchmark, to build big and the tallest. Hope, they should build using green building practices,and enviromental freindly
Posted by A.L.S, Dubai on 8 October 2008 at 10:00 UAE time
It is so sad to read about an even higher Tower to glamourise this City. If Dubai thinks it is so great how come it cannot even look at the people struggling in this city. People are being evicted out of their homes, men are sleeping in their cars, and yet there is enough money to build a tower that at the end is not needed! Prioritise!!!!
Posted by Trojan on 7 October 2008 at 23:00 UAE time
Doesn't anyone beside me see what this really is? This great spin machine has all along been playing on an ancient common falacy: affirming the consequent, which goes as this: If A leads to B is a fact, then if B then there must be A. In other words, the fact is that if there is demand then there will be building. But the reverse does not necessarily hold, especially not in a market that lacks transparency and is flood with excess liquidity.
This is just another desparate attempt by the spin doctors to save their inevitible demise...but it seems the stock market is not falling for it.
Posted by Cholo Jopson, Dubai, UAE on 7 October 2008 at 12:27 UAE time
With the superlatives coming before and after the name of Dubai, the city would soon earn the world's city of the odds.
Posted by Saeed Ali, Sharjah, UAE on 7 October 2008 at 10:17 UAE time
In a time of global turmoil, the Gulf is showing their courage and ambition by such projects. This proves the slowdown will simply not hit here; people should be more optimistic, and support such projects and not bring religion into the discussion as Hussain is doing. Dubai will become the most prosperous city in the history of mankind so its taking cheap shots by trying to bring Islam into it.
Posted by Marcus, Dbx, UAE on 7 October 2008 at 09:54 UAE time
Arabian Business reporters uncovered Nakheel's hidden competitive asset - time compression. Twice (once in the article and once in a caption in the picture series of the new tower) do reporters tell us that the 900m tower, not yet started, will be completed in early 2009... and it will take 10 years to complete. Either this is magic, or we cannot trust this news.
Editor's note: The 900m tower is Emaar's Burj Dubai not the new project announced by Nakheel.
Posted by Hussain, Dubai, UAE on 7 October 2008 at 09:14 UAE time
Aren't we satisfied yet with the amount of attention our region is getting for the right or the wrong reasons. Biggest, tallest, widest, richest, is this what is required. One of the greatest and the most popular human being ever to live in this world Prophet Mohamed PBUH lived in the most modest and possibly a small house, we the living and our lineage will always be proud of that.
Posted by Graham Plater, Munich, Germany on 6 October 2008 at 19:21 UAE time
There once was a song that went
"I can do anything better than you can... I can do anything better than you... Yes I can!... No you can't!... Yes I can!... No you can't!" ?
Reminds me of the tit-for-tat between organizations which, ultimately, belong to the same people... :-) Who are they trying to fool into believing that the UAE is an open market?
Posted by Joe Simm, New York, USA on 6 October 2008 at 17:15 UAE time
This isn't news and you could use this space in a better way with all the needy out there.
Posted by JHS on 6 October 2008 at 13:31 UAE time
How many children could be fed, educated, immunized, etc. for the money being spent on this tower? It is sickening to admit that if the money used to construct the tallest buildings, the biggest malls, etc. here in the region were to be saved for two years a check could be written to wipe out poverty. I do not think that God has blessed this region with wealth so it can be squandered. Which would be better to be remembered for by your grandchildren.....building the biggest and the best or ending world hunger?