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The Burj Khalifa—currently the tallest building in the world and a landmark on the Dubai skyline—was lauded for its luxury apartments and deluxe amenities when it opened in 2010. But the building has been a huge flop with investors, and real estate prices there have plummeted from highs of $2,450 per-square-foot to around $721 per-square foot, the Wall Street Journal's Tahani Karrar-Lewsley reports today. Investors called the building "distressed" back in February, bringing to mind other super-ambitious real estate projects that have failed in the emirate in recent years. The Burj, which has 903 residential apartments, opened at a tough...

The world's tallest building has been opened with a dramatic fireworks ceremony in the Gulf emirate of Dubai. The Burj Khalifa was revealed to be 828m (2,716ft) high, far taller than the previous record holder, Taipei 101. Known as the Burj Dubai during construction, the tower has been renamed after the leader of Dubai's oil-rich neighbour, Abu Dhabi. Last month, Abu Dhabi gave Dubai a handout of $10bn (£6.13bn) to help it pay off its debts. Construction of the Burj Dubai began in 2004, at the height of an economic boom. Clad in 28,000 glass panels, the tower has 160...

Here is a video report on the opening of the World's Tallest Building - the Burj Dubai, which is reported to be more than 800 meters tall (2640 feet). That makes it much taller than the second tallest building in the world - Taipei's Tower 101, which stands 508 meters high. The building is set to open on Monday, January 4, 2010. Once-bustling Dubai will open the world's tallest skyscraper on Monday, boasting new limits in design and construction, hopeful of polishing an image tarnished by the debt woes afflicting the Gulf emirate. Emaar, the giant property firm part-owned by...

As G7 economies battle the subprime crisis, emerging markets continue to power ahead. So does construction there. The huge number of companies setting up in the region is driving demand for office and residential space. Driven by a mix of compact cities, expensive land and corporate ego, 16 of the 20 tallest buildings in the world are already located in Asia or the Middle East, the tallest being Taiwan's 508 meter-high Taipei 101 Tower. This spring, Mori Building Co. will add to the list the Shanghai World Financial Center, No. 2 at 492 meters tall. In Shanghai's Grade A office...

A 150-story lakefront tower that would be the nation's tallest building is a step closer to reality. The Chicago City Council on Wednesday approved a zoning change that clears the way for construction on the 2,000-foot, twisting Chicago Spire to start later this month. The Chicago Park District also approved the transfer of two parcels on the north bank of the Chicago River to the city. The completed structure would unseat the city's 1,451-foot Sears Tower as the tallest building in the United States. The spire would also be taller than New York's 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, currently under construction at...

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- The city's planning board has endorsed a proposal for a twisting lakefront tower that would become the nation's tallest building. With Thursday's approval from the Chicago Plan Commission, the design and site plan for the 2,000-foot Chicago Spire goes to the city zoning committee next week. "This is a wonderful project, and everyone is very enthused," said Constance Buscemi, spokeswoman for the city's planning department. The 150-story tower, which would feature 1,200 residences, would unseat Chicago's 1,451-foot Sears Tower as the tallest U.S. building. It would also top New York's 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, under construction at...

The Burj Dubai, slated to be the tallest building in the world when it’s done in 2009, is rising 160 stories or more (the final height is a secret) in the desert. It’s no anomaly. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 seem to have whetted the global appetite to build taller and taller. Most of the new mega-skyscrapers are in Asia and the Middle East, but the engineers and architects are American. Why the boom? A combination of economic imperatives and powerful egos, both national and personal. Coming soon: the fulfillment of Frank Lloyd Wright’s dream of a mile-high building. In...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Burj Dubai skyscraper under construction here reached its 100th story on Tuesday, nearly two-thirds of the way in its relentless climb to become the world's tallest building. With 3,000 laborers adding a new floor nearly every three days, the $1 billion spire is at 1,140 feet and days away from surpassing a neighboring skyscraper, the razor-blade resembling Emirates Office Tower, at 1,165 feet. The Emirates Office Tower is currently the tallest in the Middle East, Dubai-based developer Emaar Properties said. "The tower is a symbol of the city's pride and a statement of our...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- From Shanghai to Dubai, skyscraper construction is booming. Over the next 10 years, 434 new buildings more than 50 stories are expected to be built around the world, according to Emporis Buildings, an international database of building information. That compares to the construction of 630 buildings of similarly lofty proportions during the past 100 years; 375 of those went up in the last decade, according to Emporis. One of the leading boomtowns is Shanghai, China, said David Scott, chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat and an engineer with the global design firm...

CHICAGO -- The development company that plans to build the new Chicago Spire released its final design on Thursday, and said it plans to apply for final approval with the city on Friday. Architect Santiago Calatrava designed the 2,000-foot tower, which upon completion will be the tallest residential building in the world, according to a press release by the Shelbourne Development Group. Calatrava said the building said he believes the final design is "more mature than it was initially." The building will stand at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive, at the mouth of the Chicago River. The tower's final plan...

Southern Nevada has long been a place where architectural imagination runs wild (think volcano, pyramid and New York skyline), where would-be developers ignore the constraints of reality and hope their spectacular - if not fantasy-based - visions will take root and become tomorrow's icons. Now come two wildly contrasting visions of where Las Vegas-bound tourists can escape - one, a towering Strip hotel that would be the second-tallest building in the world and the other, an artists' village in the nearby desert that might best befit a world of unicorns and rainbows. As intriguing as each might be, they both...

In this city where the skyscraper was born, it is thriving like never before. Luxury condominium towers and office buildings that climb 600 feet and more are sprouting up all over downtown. Along the Chicago River, the Trump International Hotel and Tower is inching its way up to a planned 92 stories. Plans are in the works for a nearby 124-story skyscraper, the Fordham Spire, that would knock the Sears Tower from its perch as the tallest building in the United States. Since 2000, no fewer than 40 buildings at least 50 stories high have been built, are under construction...

(Click here to see an ArgusLeader.com video of the failed implosion) SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Thousands of spectators gathered Saturday to watch the demolition of the city's tallest building - but the Zip Feed Mill tower was stronger than it looked. The 202-foot-tall concrete structure dropped slightly, leaned a little - and stopped. The abandoned feed mill elevator in downtown Sioux Falls paled in comparison to structures such as Chicago's 1,450-foot Sears Tower or even North Dakota's 242-foot state Capitol in Bismarck, but it was widely considered the tallest building in South Dakota. That was enough to draw people outside,...

The construction of what will be the world's tallest building is set to begin in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The building contract was awarded to a consortium led by the South Korean Samsung Corporation on Thursday. The Burj Dubai tower will stand 800 metres tall - just 5 metres shy of half a mile - once completed in 2008. That will be a full 350 metres taller that the tallest floored in the world today, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. The new tower’s unique, three-sided design will ascend in a series of stages, around a supportive central core and...

New York straight up Through ghastly circumstance, it is once again Manhattan's tallest skyscraper. But the Empire State Building has always been so much more. By Blair Kamin Tribune architecture critic March 20, 2002 NEW YORK -- There it is, popping out from between the skyscrapers as you face south from Central Park. There it is again, soaring above the sidewalk as you gaze east from Macy's on 34th Street. Looking northward from the Flatiron Building at 22nd Street, it is there, too, rising in splendid isolation, its Art Deco summit lit up like the American flag in stacked...