“U.S.-based Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture and U.S.-based Pickard Chilton with U.K.-based Hyder Consulting are in the running for the concept design for the planned Kingdom Tower in Jeddah.” [Bloomberg]
What’s so fascinating about the race to the top right now is that it’s happening primarily in cities that really don’t need buildings that tall. Let’s be clear though, building the tallest building in the world has always been strictly about ego.
But there are still rational economic reasons for building tall.When land is scarce, the only option is to build up. That’s one of the reasons why New York is tall and Houston is not.
I think it’s safe to assume, however, that if land values in Manhattan don’t demand a kilometer high skyscraper they almost certainly do not in Jeddah.
The Financial Times recently posted this exceedingly interesting article describing in detail how Bernie Madoff avoided detection by the SEC for so long. The bulk of his trickery involved an off-limits office floor in Manhattan’s “Lipstick” building (pictured above). A former employee called it “Bernie’s world.”
In total, Madoff occupied floors 17 through 19 in the building, but only the 18th and 19th floors were accessible to the public. They were pristine examples of corporate efficiency and were used to give the allusion of a well-oiled (and legitimate) machine. The 17th floor, on the other hand, was a hidden, messy and paper-strewn office where clerical employees got paid upwards of US$400,000 just so they’d keep their mouths shut.
New York Magazine recently published, here, an alarming article regarding the current state of the condo market in Williamsburg, Brookyln:
“A working-class neighborhood became a bohemian theme park, which in turn became a fantasyland for luxury-condo developers. Now, littered with half-built shells of a vanished boom, Williamsburg is looking like something else entirely: Miami.”
Here are the vitals:
Bloomberg administration rezones Williamsburg area in May 2005 to allow residential development (previously was restricted to manufacturing-only
Construction is frenetic; 2005 sees 130 news projects in the pipeline with often more than 200 units each
Median income at the time is US$25,892
Condos begin selling for greater than $1,000/SF; Manhattan is still doable at $800/SF
Sales in Brooklyn now down 57% compared to last year
2,818 new apartments projected to hit the market by the end of the year, with another 2,766 slated for the end of 2010
Developers now can’t sell condo units and consider converting unsold buildings into rental and, in one case, a youth hostel
Continuing on the topic of home ownership structures, here is an interesting “try before you buy” scheme being implemented in New York. 75 Wall Street, a luxury downtown condominium project, has a rent-to-own scheme that seemingly offers renters/buyers a lot of flexibility:
“He thinks of it as an opportunity to try a new building and neighbourhood before buying, as well as a canny financial hedge. “It’s my first time living in the Financial District and that’s a completely new experience,” he says. “It’s [also] protection. If the market has a V-shaped recovery and prices [are] higher in 12 months, I’m capped; I have a certain [purchase] price listed on the contract and … haven’t completely thrown away all the money from renting.” At the same time, if Manhattan property values fall and he realises he wants to live somewhere else he can end his lease and start house-hunting again.”
According to Bloomberg, apartment prices in Manhattan dropped for the first time since 2002; citing the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns as finally catching up with property owners in the most expensive urban market in the US.
“The median price fell 18.5 percent from a year earlier to $835,700, New York appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate said today. The number of sales plunged by half, the most since Miller Samuel began keeping data in 1989.”
The High Line Park is the project I referenced, in this post, when I discussed Toronto’s proposed Gardiner Expressway Garden. This is a truly unique park designed by Jim Corner’s Field Operations.
Another one of their projects, that I’m impatiently anticipating, is Lake Ontario Park, which is being executed as part of Waterfront Toronto’s billion dollar urban renewal initiative. This same initiative is also responsible for the WaveDecks being constructed along the water’s edge.
