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Old Posted Jul 25, 2007, 12:00 AM
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Lecom Lecom is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by newstl2020 View Post
Well I'm just going to go by emporis here, no clue how this information adds up to real life...but...

Per Emporis Jeddah has no towers over 30 stories tall as of right now. The tallest building in Jeddah is 126 m, and there are only 4 projects on the table that are taller than this. It is impossible to compare this city to Chicago, or ANY major city in the world. And I appreciate the defense of the middle-east, but are any of you attempting to maintain that a mile tall building needs to be built when as of right now there are 3 towers over 100m, tallest of which is 126? For some reason, I do not believe that this can ever be defended as necessary, or even remotely feasable/possible. A city in the sky? Maybe needed in other cities within the next 50 years, but DEFFINITELY not here.
A building of this size would equally overshadow any city, whether it's New York or Jeddah. I know what you are getting at, but skyline-wise it won't matter whether a nearby tower is 100 or 300 m when this one is 1600. Demand-wise - you're talking about need, while the real issue here is "want". Not everything that is created serves a necessity; many things are just novelties that people are willing to pay for. Well, this tower is just a really big novelty. As for demand, I'm confident the building would fill up anywhere between 1 and 10 years. As tall as it may be, 1600 meters of office floors in one building is roughly as much (even less actually, since much space inside this tower would be taken up by elevators) as 16 100-meter towers - roughly the size of the skyline of any mid-size American city. And if a city with 500,000 people can fill this space, then I am certain a city with almost 3.5 million would do it with much greater ease. I bet that if jeddah peoposed 16 100-meter towers, there would barely be any questions from anyone whether the city can fill them. It's just the height that makes it seem larger than it actually is. As for the huge sum, it seems like the developer can afford to sit on it, and investing in real estate, especially landmark real estate, is one of the best investments anyone can ever make. Besides, the money the investor would lose on building such an inefficient structure, he can make back easily with tourism and higher rates charged for living/renting space in such a trophy building. Would it look ridiculously tall on Jeddah's skyline? yes. However, is it destined to be an economical failure for the developer? Not necessarily.
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