Its launch was spectacular, but can the world's tallest building draw tourists to Dubai, asks BERNICE HARRISON
IT WAS NEVER going to be an intimate party for a handful of the sheikh’s closest friends. For many reasons, the only way to launch the Burj Dubai, the tallest man-made structure on the planet, last Monday was with a jaw-dropping fireworks display in front of an estimated 5,000 guests.
The pyrotechnics were the finishing touches to an already spectacular evening that began for about 300 VIP guests with a drinks reception – water and juice – on the ground floor of the tower (burj is Arabic for tower), where, for most men, the dress code appeared to be immaculate white dishdashas and red-and-white headscarves; many of the relatively few women in the VIP section toted giant designer handbags to go with their jewel-hemmed abayas. Gold Louis Vuitton totes, as big as weekend cases, were the most spotted.
Once seated on squashy sofas in a viewing section – for a reason I can’t fathom I was only a dozen seats along from the party’s host, and Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum – the spectacle began.
Ten parachutists drifted down from the sky, carrying giant flags bearing the sheikh’s picture and looking like extras in a Bond movie, while a giant air balloon hovered for no apparent reason in the sky. The fountain in the man-made lake in front of the tower kicked off with a dazzling water display, shooting jets of water 30m into the sky in time to traditional Arabic music.
Rubberneckers in this part of the world aren’t discreet. Before the giant video screen giving the history of the project boomed into action, lines of men stood staring at the seated sheikh (who was flanked by his government ministers), as if being that close to him was simply enough.
The building’s vital statistics were kept a secret until the last minute – about 800m tall had always been the official figure – for fear the owners of some other skyscraper might stick a mast on top of their building and claim the glory. After seven years of construction Dubai wasn’t going to be trumped – but in reality no other building is even close, and there were gasps from the crowd as a counter on the screen clicked away until 828m was revealed as the height.
That announcement was expected, and it had people around me tweeting and blogging the news, but the revelation of a name change was a major surprise and even more newsworthy. It’s been the Burj Dubai since the first sod was turned, in 2003, but it is now the Burj Khalifa, after Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan, who is president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of nearby Abu Dhabi, which has been bailing out debt-ridden Dubai.
As the tower is going to be mostly a tourist attraction instead of a symbol of property development, the name change from the easy-to-Google Burj Dubai is going to be a less catchy sell.
Looking up at the astonishing structure as smoke from the fireworks wafted through the choreographed light show beaming out from the tower, it was easy to believe the dizzying statistics. Burj Khalifa, which can be seen from 95km away, has 28,000 windows, 1,044 apartments, 160 hotel rooms and 49 floors of offices.
The floor that will draw tourists like a magnet is the world’s loftiest observation deck, up at level 124, which has floor-to-ceiling glass panels giving 360-degree views. Those who want to test their head for heights can step out on to the terrace. The deck opened to the public on Tuesday with an entrance fee of about €17.
Access to the deck is via one of several lifts that are also record breakers. At 504m they have the highest elevator rise, although they cover that vertical ground in less than a minute.
The anchor tenant, the Armani Hotel, which will take up the first 37 floors of the building, is not due to open until March 18th, but the Italian designer promises a “lifestyle experience”, saying “with this hotel I am bringing the ‘Stay with Armani’ promise to reality.”
Industry analysts will be watching to see if his five-star hotel can command premium prices in a city crowded with five- and even so-called seven-star establishments that have had to drop their prices in the past 12 months.
The first residents of the Burj, the owners of the 140 apartments in the Armani Residences, will move in early next month; other residents and corporate tenants get their keys in March.
Despite the astonishing spectacle of the fireworks, a long-time Middle East commentator remarked to me, as we made our way out through the crowd, how restrained the whole event was – relative, that is, to the way it had been for the past 10 years, when this part of the world defined blinging excess. There was a time, he said, when entire planeloads of Hollywood A-listers would have been flown in for a launch of this magnitude. Not any more.
