Category: 
"Hey Taipei, mine's bigger than yours!"
The Burj Dubai opens today, and I’ve got no doubt it will open to great pomp and fanfare. I’m half-expecting to hear that the new building, besides just replacing Taipei 101 as the tallest skyscraper in the World, has a pool made out of unicorn horns or something equally ridiculous.
Like the Burj Al Arab, the Burj Dubai is intended to “put Dubai on the map” as an international destination and financial center of the Middle East. However, I can’t help but wonder if the completion of the Burj Dubai actually helps or hurts Dubai from a public relations standpoint. When I was in Dubai, my visceral reaction to the building was that it is the coolest, most unnecessary thing Dubai could have added to their landscape.
First, it’s not as if Dubai didn’t have enough attractions and oddities. The Burj Dubai follows many other attractions such as the aforementioned Burj Al Arab, the sailboat-shaped hotel built on an island just off the Dubai shoreline, the “Leap of Faith” at the Atlantis hotel, and of course, snow skiing at the Mall of the Emirates! And as far as the United States goes (and wherever else the show is broadcast), having the ‘Amazing Race’ television show visit Dubai did more to promote the country for FAR less money.
Second, opulence isn’t the standard of the day, business or personal. With the current economic depression, what business is looking for $4000/sq. ft office space? Dubai is still a fun party town (for the Middle East), but somehow I don’t see how the Burj Dubai offers a desirable living situation…who’s the market, people who can’t afford to put a house on the Palm Islands? Outside of the shopping, I didn’t see a whole lot that would make you want to stay for more than a week or so. Coincidentally, this is the same fate I would ascribe to Las Vegas. Great for a few days, then REALLY great to go home.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the unveiling of the building in light of the recent debt problems. This building, at a cost of $4 billion or so, as part of a $20 billion “Downtown Dubai” project, just looks so irresponsible now. Obviously, Dubai wasn’t the only property developer to get their projections and/or timing wrong, but it’s such incredibly bad timing. I know I wouldn’t look to buy a multi-million dollar condo in an area where the government can’t pay the bills. Which is why not only won’t I be moving to Dubai, I won’t be moving to California either!
Obviously, I’m taking a relatively short-term look at the situation. It could be that the Burj Dubai ends up being as iconic as the Empire State Building in the United States; if so, perhaps this short-term blip will turn out to be an impressive investment, one that pays off many times over. The next decade or so will let us know the outcome; if the World economies turn around quickly, I’m wrong. But somehow a quick turn-around just doesn’t feel like a possibility. But even if it does, if I had $4 billion in the bank, I wouldn’t be rushing to build the next Burj Dubai.
They used Unicorn tears for the water in the pool, supposed to be great for your skin.
If I had 4 billion in the bank I would be doing a lot of things differently :)
We will be visiting another iconic building in a few weeks that bankrupted the empire that built it, the person who had it built had arms of the workers cut off after it’s completion. He was later put under house arrest by his own son for bankrupting the kingdom. I’m talking about the Taj Mahal and one of the last emperors of the Mughal dynasty, Akbar.
Point taken. This *could* be another Taj Mahal…as decorated by Armani ;)
Nate Phillips and I once had dinner together in the Taipei 101 with a mutual friend. We had both forgotten about it until he joined Duke last year. Then we had this crazy epiphany that we had actually met years before.
Wow, that’s quite a rare chance event! Just having met in the U.S. before would’ve been pretty long odds; to have met in Taiwan, at dinner through a mutual friend, that’s something.
Or, Nate is stalking you. Actually, that might be a better explanation…
The mutual friend was a Duke MBA, and the dinner was something of a recruiting event, so it is not all completely coincidental. But we had definitely forgotten about each other until he was already an admitted student. I remember I saw Nate’s LinkedIn profile, and was surprised that he was friends with Ben Riley. I then realized he was in Taipei around the time of the dinner (we had about eight or nine people there). He may have done the same thing, too, because several days later he sent me a message saying that we had actually met previously in Taipei.
But back then, he was still several years out from an MBA.