The Tower of Babel

Opening of world's tallest tower marks end of Dubai era

From Breitbart:

Next month's opening of the Burj Dubai tower, the world's tallest building, will bring Dubai's era of exuberant expansion to a juddering halt as hundreds of other building projects are already mothballed.

Plunging property prices and weak demand had already put a dampener on new schemes even before last week's shock announcement by state-owned giant Dubai World that it wants to halt debt payments for six months.

"It's not exactly going to improve investor confidence," said Matthew Green, associate director at property agency CB Richard Ellis, which has reported a 55 percent year-on-year drop in downtown Dubai commercial rental rates and a 67 percent fall outside the centre.

The 800-metre (2,700 foot) tall skyscraper is the centrepiece of a 20 billion dollar new shopping district, Downtown Burj Dubai, which also includes 30,000 apartments and the Dubai Mall, which claims its space for 1,200 shops makes it the world's biggest indoor shopping centre.

The tower, whose needle-shaped upper section is visible from 15 kilometres (10 miles) away, stands on one side of a popular piazza, thronged with strollers in the evenings, when a fountain gushes in the central lake.

Developer Emaar has officially announced that Burj Dubai tower will open on January 4, the fourth anniversary of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum's accession to power in Dubai.

Under construction since 2004, the opening of the steel-and-glass landmark has unofficially been put back from late 2008, but no further delay is likely for fear of loss of face by Emaar, which has not escaped the impact of the global property downturn.