Quote:
Originally Posted by Lecom
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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I respectfully think the first part of this is an ill conceived statement. How could it equally overpower any skyline? We are talking about a 100 meter tallest vs. a 600 m tallest in cities such as Chicago or even *possibly) 800+ in Dubai. How is that equally overshadowing? And with regards to the demand, a huge spring of demand does not just surge forward at once. Economically? If there was a demand for this much office space anywhere in the area, they would allready have more than 3 100m towers in the city. Even if they built 16 100m towers that would still be rediculous, as it would be quadroupling the amount of total tower office space currently available in the city. I would deffinitely still question that. I'm confused by the strategy of anyone building this building. I do not disagree that this is a novelty building, which is fine, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still not warranted/justifiable. Tourism? I respectfully, once again, do not think that tourism to Saudi Arabia to see this building is going to make up for the cost of a 10(I think that's right. I need to go back) billion dollar building.
Oh, and in regards to above, we would not be jumping for joy if this building was proposed in America. Just because we are from America doesn't mean we don't want other places to succeed. I LOVE the Burj Dubai, and jumped for joy at that. This building is MUCH, MUCH uglier.