Source: http://www.zawya.com
A new commercial tower planned for Dubai’s Jumeirah Lake Towers (JLT) community could end up taller than the city’s famous Burj Khalifa .That’s according to Ahmed bin Sulayem, a senior official from the authority that oversees the district.
Bin Sulayem, executive chairman at Dubai Multi Commodities Centre ( DMCC ), has said a new project to build the world’s tallest commercial tower as part of a major expansion of JLT is “our version of Canary Wharf” – the business hub in East London that boasted Britain’s tallest building until the completion of ‘The Shard’ on the south of the River Thames.
If the new structure is to take the accolade of the world’s tallest office building, it will have to stand taller than the 509m Taipei 101 building in Taiwan – and Bin Sulayem told 7DAYS that he hasn’t written off giving the 828m Burj Khalifa a run for its money.
Addressing doubters who “just want to criticise for the sake of it”, he said: “Look, don’t test me. The more you test me, the more I am going to go after something bigger.”
JLT has already boasted the tallest completed building in Dubai once – the 328m-tall Al Mas Tower, the headquarters of the DMCC . It held that title until the opening of the Burj Khalifa .
And Bin Sulayem said it was the experience of developing that project that makes him think the latest tower may end up bigger than originally envisaged. In that case investor demand saw a planned 50-floor tower stretch to 63 by the time of its completion.
“We had great success with that very difficult initiative here, when we had 400 companies. By the time this tower goes for sale we will be 8,000 or maybe 9,000 companies,” he said. “It might end up as the world’s tallest tower -period,” Bin Sulayem added.
