Burj Khalifa — The Tallest Building in the World
/World’s Tallest SkyScraper
First Published Date: Feb 6, 2010
In September 2004, the Burj Dubai project started, intending to build what was expected to become the world’s tallest building. In officially opening the building, this January of 2010 – some two years after the originally intended completion date in 2008, the opening ceremony is a testament to the spirit of co-operative human endeavour, overcoming all obstacles, including the global recession, to achieve an outcome which is recognized as being second to none – the achievement of having built the tallest building in the world.
Despite good progress until late 2008, the fate of the Burj Dubai was left somewhat in the balance when the exposure of the emirate of Dubai to the financial havoc caused by global recession became apparent, with Burj Dubai looking likely to become one of many fire sale items that might need to be sold off to get the emirate out of the red. However, in the pomp and ceremony of the opening day was included a re-naming ceremony for the Burj Dubai – and it was formally opened as the Burj Khalifa – by way of tribute to the leader of Abu Dhabi – Sheik Khalifia bin Zayed Al Nahayan who recently provided financial assistance to the neighboring Dubai to the tune of CAD 11 ($10) billion securing the financial future of Dubai and ensuring completion of the Burg Khalifa, enabling it to take its place as the fully accredited tallest building in the world. It can be seen from 95 kilometers away. The Khalifa Tower is around half a mile high and overlooks the entire city, including existing tall buildings, it is expected to be a tourist magnet, not only for its unique height, but its location from which can be accessed all of the wonders of Dubai – the world’s largest arch bridge, the twirling tower, a refrigerated beach and some artificial islands shaped like a map of the world – for a vacation or a stopover, this new centre for tourism in Dubai promises an experience in the grandest style and well worth including in your travel plans, particularly for those who enjoy fine dining and those who love to shop.
There are over 160 levels in the Burj Khalifa – including the area given over to the Armani Hotel. The elevator has the longest travel distance in the world and there are double deck elevators which travel at 10 meters per second-the highest speeds to take you up to the highest level observation deck, where breath taking panoramic views can be enjoyed by night and day. Most of the lower levels of the Burj Khalifa are taken up by the luxurious Armani Hotel with 160 guest rooms, suites and nine hundred one or two room living accommodation units. There are 37 floors of office space all fitted out with the very latest in design and e-technology – the Burj Khalifa is a new hub for both business and social interaction and will bring some much needed new tourism and trade into the economy of Dubai.
To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the realestateexpedition.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Feb 6, 2010
