For 3,881 years, the Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest structure ever built. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World had a lot to live up to even then. The Great Pyramid and its cohorts remain something to see: a feat of strength and wealth shouting to the world, “Look at me!”
Well, there’s a new Pharaoh in town, and he’s building the world’s tallest buildings on the backs of foreign workers and foreign cash, just like old times. The Middle East once again holds the distinction of being home to the tallest structure on earth.
Dubai alone has more than 270 high-rises and is in the midst of constructing an additional 339. Furthermore, 330 high-rise construction projects have already been approved.
In fact, by 2015, Dubai will have more buildings of 100-plus floors than any other city in the world.
As mind-boggling as that sounds, Pharaoh’s only just begun…
The top 10 tallest buildings are a cumulative 4,918 feet. That’s not even counting Dubai’s newest skyscraper, Burj Dubai. That one, to be completed this year, is expected to be more than 2,000 feet.
The Burj Dubai alone will be more than the height of four Great Pyramids… more than all the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, stacked on top of each other.
Remember, too, that the Great Pyramid took 20 years to build. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus took six times that -- well over a century.
In contrast, the mighty Burj Dubai will be completed on December 30, 2008 -- less than four years from the time they broke ground.
Indeed, the Pharaohs live again.
What’s even more astounding than the heights of these new “Colossi” of Rhodes are the price tags. The top two towers in Dubai rang in at $650 million and $4.1 billion, or more than the entire GDPs of Belize and Barbados combined.
You haven’t seen anything, though, until you’ve looked at Dubai with a wide-angle lens.
Burj Dubai, the tower that will exceed 2,000 feet, is part of a larger development called “Downtown Burj Dubai.” It will be home to 30,000 citizens, with 19 residential towers and nine hotels.
And it will cost $20 billion to build.
If I stopped now, you’d probably be reasonably amazed at the amount of money these projects cost, at their sheer sizes and ambitions. But I have to tell you, Downtown Burj Dubai is small potatoes.
Another city, to be named Masdar City and constructed less than 100 miles from Dubai on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, will cost $22 billion and will be the first “green” city ever built. (I’ll be dedicating a full article to this masterful plan at a later time, so stay tuned.)
But even these two massive projects combined don’t equal half the cost of Kuwait’s Silk City. This immense city will be home to 700,000 people and the 1,001-meter-tall Mubarak Tower -- the centerpiece of the Silk City skyline.
To channel Robin Leech for a moment, “The price tag for these champagne wishes and caviar dreams is an eye-watering $86 billion.”
I could spend an untold amount of time telling you all the amazing things this city will include, like a resort, a 200-hectare desert preserve, a new international airport, a new railway, and a bridge linking it to Kuwait City.
Instead, I’ll just send you to the official website, and move on to an even bigger project.
Yes, bigger…
Saudi Arabia is in the midst of constructing a city costing nearly more than these three huge projects (Downtown Burj Dubai, Masdar City and Silk City).
King Abdullah Economic City will cost more than $120 billion. That’s 16% more than Kuwait’s entire GDP.
It will be home to 2 million people in six distinct cities within 168 million square meters of prime coastal land.
A 14 million square-meter port on the Red Sea will make this mega-city a hub for trade with Europe, Africa and Asia. A central business district promises to be a new financial capital of the world. Sea resorts will offer some of the best tourist destinations in the Middle East.
The Industrial, Residential and Education zones are expected to be second to none.
I don’t mean to sound like a cheerleader. I just can’t help but stand in awe of these countries that are able to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into these massive “pleasure projects.”
For example, the United Arab Emirates is putting $60 billion into Dubailand, an entertainment district that will cover 3 billion square feet and include some of the largest, most expensive attractions ever built.
How big is a 3-billion-square-foot amusement park exactly? First, take every single Disney-owned theme park and resort in the world. Then imagine them all in one place. Then double that.
Middle Eastern countries are literally creating Empires in the Desert, building them on a scale never before seen or even imagined. Their only limits are the depths of their pockets. And right now, those pockets seem to have no bottom at all.
Courtesy: www.taipanfinancialnews.com
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