Nakheel aims for the sky

If the sky’s the limit, Nakheel is coming pretty close. Yesterday it announced plans to build a skyscraper more than a kilometre high, hundreds of metres more than the world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai, which is just 10 minutes down the road.

The structure, which has been on the drawing board for more than three years, is to be the centrepiece of the Nakheel Harbour and Tower development. It will be built near the Ibn Battuta Mall on Sheikh Zayed Road.

Industry insiders have said that the tower, nicknamed Tall Tower, could reach 1.4 kilometres. That would make it almost double the projected 800 metres of Burj Dubai, and five times higher than the Burj Al Arab, the emirate’s iconic sail-shaped, seven-star hotel.

Nakheel, the Dubai Government’s property developer, declined to say how much the tower would cost or the overall value of the development. Designed by the Australian architects Woods Bagot, it is to include 40 other towers, between 20 and 90 floors each, a canal system and harbour.

“It will truly be a magnificent engineering feat,” said Chris O’Donnell, the chief executive of Nakheel.

Work on the tower’s foundations is already under way and is expected to take three years.

Nakheel will finance the development by pre-selling apartments and the 270 hectares of land surrounding the project, as well as bank loans, it said.
Despite the global credit crunch and a slowdown in financing for construction projects, Mr O’Donnell said Tall Tower would proceed because it was being developed over a decade.

“What’s happening globally is just a normal economic cycle,” he said. “There might be a slowdown but there definitely won’t be a crash as the fundamentals of the Middle East market are just too strong. A building project of this type was always going to take 10 years, and we will monitor the economic climate over that period when determining funding for the project.”

Mr O’Donnell added that the global economic slowdown would result in a more sophisticated investor. “Dubai has matured rapidly and property buyers are becoming increasingly discerning,” he said. “They will choose to buy property that is by the water, close to transport hubs or within an iconic project. In these times there will also be a flight to quality.”

Dubai’s property sector already has a number of world records to its name. The Burj Dubai, which is just under a year away from completion, set the record as the world’s tallest free-standing structure on Sept 12 last year when it surpassed the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada. Seven months later, it took over the KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota to become the tallest man-made structure on earth, while only three weeks ago it was announced that the Burj’s height was more than 688 metres, making it the tallest man-made structure ever built. The Burj will also feature the world’s fastest lift, rising and descending at 18 metres a second. Some 56 lifts will carry roughly 40 people at a time.

Palm Deira, which is also being developed by Nakheel, is destined to be the largest man-made island in the world, five times bigger than The Palm Jebel Ali and more than seven times bigger than the almost-finished Palm Jumeirah. Nakheel has said it will be half the size of Paris when completed.

Standing at the foot of the Burj Dubai in the emirate’s new downtown district is the Dubai Mall, which will surpass all its rivals to become the largest mall – and set a number of other records – when it opens on Oct 30. Providing 1.12 million square metres of floor space, the building will feature 10 to 15 smaller malls with 1,200 shops. The mall will also have the world’s largest aquarium and largest gold souk, with more than 200 retailers, a 79,000sq/m fashion island with 70 outlets dedicated to high-end clothing, a Les Galeries Lafayette department store – the first outside Europe – and an Olympic-sized ice skating rink.

But Nakheel could be outshone this week at Cityscape if Meraas Investment Company, the private equity firm of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announces the Dubai City Tower. That structure is rumoured to be 2.41km high, to be built in an area called “Vertical City”.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, kilometre-high towers are planned in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait’s City of Silk development.

Dubai aims to top its own world's tallest tower

With record-breaking tower nearly complete, booming Dubai shoots even higher -- a lot higher

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- With its world's tallest building nearing completion, Dubai said Sunday it is embarking on an even more ambitious skyscraper: one that will soar the length of more than 10 American football fields.

That's about two-thirds of a mile or the height of more than three of New York's Chrysler Buildings stacked end-to-end.

Babel had nothing on this place.

"This is unbelievably groundbreaking design," Chief Executive Chris O'Donnell said during a briefing at the company's sales center, not far from the proposed site. "This still takes my breath away."

The tower, which will take more than a decade to complete, will be the centerpiece of a sprawling development state-owned builder Nakheel plans to create in the rapidly growing "New Dubai" section of the city. Foundation work has already begun, O'Donnell said.

The area is located between two of the city's artificial palm-shaped islands, which Nakheel also built. The project will include a manmade inland harbor and 40 additional towers up to 90 floors high.

About 150 elevators will carry residents and workers to the Nakheel Tower's more than 200 floors, the company said. The building will be composed of four separate towers joined at various levels and centered on an open atrium.

"It does show a lot of confidence in this environment" of worldwide credit problems and a souring global economy, said Marios Maratheftis, Standard Chartered Bank's Dubai-based regional head of research.

As part of government-run conglomerate Dubai World, Nakheel has played a major role in creating modern-day Dubai, a city that has blossomed from a tiny Persian Gulf fishing and pearling village into a major business and tourism hub in a matter of decades.

Besides the growing archipelago of man-made islands for which it is best known, Nakheel is responsible for a number of the city's malls, hotels and hundreds of apartment buildings.

The company said the new project is inspired by Islamic design and draws inspiration from sites such as the Alhambra in Spain and the harbor of Alexandria in Egypt.

"There is nothing like it in Dubai," said Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Nakheel's chairman.

Perhaps not quite. But Dubai is already home to the world's tallest building, even if it remains unfinished.

That skyscraper, the Burj Dubai, or Dubai Tower in Arabic, is being built by Nakheel's chief competitor, Emaar Properties.

Emaar has kept the final height of the silvery steel-and-glass tower a closely guarded secret, saying only that it stood at a "new record height" of 2,257 feet at the start of last month. It's due to be finished next September.

The final height of Nakheel's proposed tower is likewise a secret, as is the price tag. The company would only say it will be more than a kilometer (3,281 feet) tall.

O'Donnell said he was confident that Nakheel could pay for the project despite the financial troubles roiling the world's economy.

He also brushed aside concerns by some analysts that Dubai's property market is becoming overheated and due for a potentially sharp correction.

"In Dubai, demand outstrips supply," he said. "There might be a slowdown, but there definitely won't be a crash."

Nakheel announces kilometre high skyscraper

The structure will be the centre-piece of an inner-city harbour set to become the emirate's new, unofficial capital


After more than three years on the drawing board, Nakheel has announced that it is to build a skyscraper that will be more than one kilometre high, the tallest in the world — but only minutes down the road from the current tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai.

The tower will be the centrepiece of the Nakheel Harbour and Tower development, which is planned close to Ibn Battuta shopping mall on the Sheikh Zayed Road.

Industry insiders have said that the tower could reach as high as 1.4 kilometres when finished, making it almost double the height of Emaar Properties’ Burj Dubai, which is expected to reach over 800 metres when completed towards the end of next year.

Nakheel declined to disclose the cost of the tower, which has been designed by Australian architects Woods Bagot, or the overall value of the development, which will include 40 other towers of between 20 and 90 floors, along with a canal system and harbour.

“It will truly be a magnificent engineering feat,” said Chris O’Donnell, the chief executive of Nakheel.

Foundation work on the tower is already under way and is expected to take three years to complete.

Nakheel will finance the development through a combination of pre-sales of apartments, the sale of 270 hectares of land surrounding the project and bank loans.

Despite the global credit crunch and a slowdown in financing for construction projects, Mr O’Donnell said he was confident that the project would be built successfully, owing to the fact it would be developed over 10 years. “What’s happening globally is just a normal economic cycle,” he said.

“There might be a slowdown but there definitely won’t be a crash as the fundamentals of the Middle East market are just too strong. A building project of this type was always going to take 10 years, and we will monitor the economic climate over that period when determining funding for the project.”

Mr O’Donnell added that the current global economic slowdown would result in a more discerning investor.

“Dubai has matured rapidly and property buyers are becoming increasingly discerning. They will choose to buy property that is by the water, close to transport hubs or within an iconic project,” he said

“In these times there will also be a flight to quality.”

But Nakheel could be outshone in the next few days at this week’s Cityscape if Meraas, the private equity firm of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announces its tall tower. An advertisement on the Cityscape website yesterday showed a teaser image of the Atrium City Tower, a design by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill that would rise higher than any tower ever built.

Other tall towers planned for the Middle East include a kilometre-high tower in Saudi Arabia, along with another kilometre-high tower in Kuwait’s City of Silk development.

Tall Order: Super Skyscraper Plan

It will be more than 1km high, have 150 lifts and will take over 10 years to construct, say the developers of what could become the world's tallest building.

The Islamic design-inspired Nakheel Tower will be the centre piece of a multi-billion pound inner-city harbour development in Dubai.

Its makers claim it will be so tall that the tower will experience five different microclimatic conditions above its height.

And high speed shuttle lifts will mean people will be able to see the sunset twice - from the bottom and again from the top of the building.

Nakheel - the company that created man-made islands in the shapes of a palm tree and the world - is behind the build.

Its chief executive officer, Christopher O'Donnell, cautiously told a news conference: "From our perspective, we are building a tower that's going to be over 1km in height.

"This is a complete iconic development. It may be the tallest. Someone may build something taller."

But "tallest building" claims are notoriously difficult to make. Debates about what counts as a candidate include whether buildings under construction should be considered and whether roof-top antennas count.

What is certain is that the tower will climb above the current holder of the "world's tallest building" position - the Emirate's own Burj Dubai.

Asked if the firm was worried about embarking on such a development during a global financial crisis, Mr O'Donnell said: "It was always going to be a project that would take 10 years-plus.

"When you go about trying to fund a project like this, you have to take account of the economic cycles."

The company would not comment on how much the tower will cost to build.

Also:

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.

Latest Al Burj Tall Tower render

Here is the latest render of what the Al Burj tower might look like. The tower is suppose to be 1400 meters, 1.4 km tall when completed. But if you put the renders in photoshop and count pixels it only comes out to about 1200 meters...