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| Among the many things that keep Burj Khalifa in the news are stories of Indian celebs & businessmen investing in this property. |
DUBAI: Dubai burst on to the world stage in the year 2003 in more ways than one. That year, with a $6-million winners' purse, its coveted Dubai World Cup horse race became the world's richest.
The World Bank and IMF boards of governors held their annual meeting here the same year. In the financial year ending March 2003, the city's very own Emirates Airlines carried 8.5 million passengers worldwide and posted a 94% increase in profits.
This was also the year when the idea of the world's tallest tower fructified, leading to its launch in 2004. Just 1,325 days after the beginning of excavation, Burj Khalifa became the world's tallest man-made structure when it was inaugurated on January 4, 2010.
In the months preceding the groundbreaking of the project, a huge site was earmarked alongside the bustling Sheikh Zayed Road for the construction of what was then called Burj Dubai, but now also described as a 'Vertical City'. This was not the only iconic structure coming up in Dubai at the time. In fact, there was greater buzz around man-made islands, Palm Jumeirah and Palm Jabel Ali, which were already under construction not far from here.
Around the same time, a huge brightly lit billboard came up near the site. On this giant perpendicular structure stood a piercing image of the inverted Y-shaped replica of the tower alongside two apt words — 'History Rising'. The proposed plot's inner precincts were not technically out of bound for passersby, but few mortals had the time, patience and keenness to venture beyond.
Bucking the Trend
A management executive — who can be tentatively labelled as the longest-standing Indian association with Burj Khalifa — became my escort to the ground zero one winter evening. He wanted to check arrangements in the makeshift site office for a leading official's proposed visit and explained to me the logistics involved in the planning stages of the tower.
The man in question was responsible for insurance-related activities of the proposed tower and continues to work at Emaar Properties, the master developer of the project. Today, standing at 828 metres (2,716.5 ft), the 200-plus storey Burj Khalifa has 160 habitable levels, the most of any building in the world.
I caught up with my 'Burj friend' to relive the experience this week and asked him one simple question — has Burj Khalifa survived Dubai real estate's boom and bust cycle? "It has not just survived, it has thrived," he almost immediately replied. He went on to explain how figures speak louder than words and how tourists have voted for the iconic tower with their feet.
"Just pay a visit to the square-mile luxury and retail space around Burj Khalifa today and you will find that the area negates all the bad publicity," he said. Emaar Properties, which is Dubai's largest quoted company, has posted a 45% surge in profit to $333 million in the second quarter of 2012 driven by its hotels and shopping malls. Emaar is also the owner of the Dubai Mall, one of the largest in the world and the Address hotel chain that includes the Armani Hotel inside Burj Khalifa.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
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