Yesterday marked the official grand opening of the worlds tallest building in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa. Originally named The Burj Dubai ('Dubai Tower' in Arabic); construction started on September 21, 2004 and was completed October 1, 2009.
"So what?" one may ask. "Dubai has been building high rises like crazy for years". While that is true, I'll let the facts and figures for the highest man-made structure in the world speak for themselves:
Height: 2,684 feet. 1,000 feet taller than the next highest building, Taipei 101 completed in 2004.
Floors: 160.
Cost: $1.5 billion USD or $9 million USD per floor.
Elevators: 57.
Capacity: 25,000 people.
Usable square footage: 5.67 million.
Residential units: 1,044.
Residential square footage: 1.85 million.
Office square footage: 300,000.
How many appliances? Miele manufactured 7,650 for the residential units.
How many toilets and bidets? Duravit made 4,000 for the building.
Observation Deck? Highest in the world on the 124th floor.
So for now, The Burj Khalifa wins the age old "Whose is bigger?" contest.
The unanswered question is how are the condo closings going? With the sales office claiming to have sold 95% of the 1,044 units within eight hours of hitting the market back in 2006, it will be interesting to see how many of these contracts close amid economic uncertainty both in Dubai and abroad. Prices per square foot are reported to have topped out at $2600 USD.
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