MY Favourite Building gets acrophobia for its first appearance of 2011 when it takes a look around the world’s tallest building. Lynn Richards-Cole, below, a director of both networking group Birmingham Forward and insurance broker Perkins Slade, discusses business networking with a difference from the top of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
Breath-taking. That’s the only way to describe the world’s highest building, the Burj Khalifa – a truly world-class building which dwarfs the surrounding skyscrapers. It makes them look like a model village.
Step off the impressive monorail – think clean, spacious, comfortable – to arrive at the Dubai Mall Metro Station. Fight your way through the inevitable shopping mall and board a lift to the 124th floor to the world’s highest observation tower.
The ear-popping ascent (30 metres per second) in the lift is undertaken in darkness – complete with whale-song to take your mind of the speed of the “flight”. When the lift doors open, you step over those who have fainted and take in the magnificent 360 degree views over the desert – simply amazing!
It re-wrote the records book when it opened just over a year ago. It’s the world’s tallest free-standing structure, the highest number of storeys in the world, highest occupied floor in the world, the elevator with the longest travel distance in the world, tallest service elevator in the world, world’s highest mosque (158th floor) and the world’s highest swimming pool (76th floor).
To get an idea of how high it is, I recommend a quick look at burjkhalifa.ae. Dubai is the tallest city in the world when ranked by the 10 tallest towers.
The tower’s statistics seem crazy: 828 metres (2,716.5 ft) high with more than 160 storeys and it cost an eye-watering £938m to build. They have a fountain display at its base which lasts half an hour and Las Vegas’ Bellagio pales by comparison.
But that’s Dubai for you. They want us all to reach for the stars and this building makes you feel as though you have a first class bullet train return.
It was renamed the Burj Khalifa (from the Burj Dubai) after Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan – the emir of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates – bailed Dubai out of its debt crisis.
But the Burj is a beacon of progress, built with international co-operation.
For me, the Burj stands for a new, dynamic and prosperous Middle East. It is built on ingenuity and initiative more than hard cash from its oil revenues.
Bollywood actress and former Big Brother contestant Shilpa Shetty owns a luxury apartment there but it’s neither the rush to be her neighbour nor a stay in one of the 7-star hotel suites that made the building possible.
It was more to do with the 2 km2 of retail, leisure, residential and hospitality that surround it. It’s the Dubai Mall, the Address Hotel and thousands of daily tourists which are paying for the Burj, not Giorgio Armani.
You’re allowed an hour at the top so I got tweeting to share my experience. Sure enough, I had two responses.
One from a business colleague who tweeted me from Bahrain and suggested a catch-up a few days later when he was due in Dubai. A second from a Birmingham business community colleague who was half a mile below me on the ground in Dubai City!
It felt absolutely surreal – half a mile high and networking!
Pic: Jas Sansi Photography
Advertise your business with TheBusinessDesk.com’s weekly Property Email. Learn more from Lee-J Walker on 07807 083544 or email him at leej.walker@thebusinessdesk.com
Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
To get an idea of how high it is, I recommend a quick look at burjkhalifa.ae. Dubai is the tallest city in the world when ranked by the 10 tallest towers.
Bollywood actress and former Big Brother contestant Shilpa Shetty owns a luxury apartment there but it’s neither the rush to be her neighbour nor a stay in one of the 7-star hotel suites that made the building possible.
