One World Trade Center Is Now The Most Expensive Office Tower In The World
One World Trade Center, the building that is to take the place of New York’s twin towers, is to cost an estimated $3.8 billion to construct. This effectively means that the new skyscraper will be the most expensive office tower in the world. The finished construtction even beats the Yongsan Landmark Tower in Korea; we believed we saw it all with the Yongsan at a whopping cost of $3.45 billion. Now, the Burj Khalifa slowly recedes into past memory.
We speculate
Compared to the new proposed tower, The Burj Khalifa was a lot less costly, coming in at a ‘mere’ $1.5 Billion. We speculate that the fluctuation in prices could result from an inflation in the construction market. In addition, the rising cost of new constructions materials from India and China may have also added to the hefty price tag.
The previous estimate of the tower was $3.1 Billion. Reports say that the $700 million markup is due to constant delays that the tower continues to face. Security concerns at the site have also bolstered the skyrocketing cost as the necessary police enforcement becomes an additional expense. The 1,776-foot skyscraper sits atop a heavily reinforced, windowless podium encasing a thick core of concrete and steel around its elevator shafts.
Not surprisingly, the actual value of the tower is nowhere the amount of the cost of production. The Port Authority has given up hopes that they can turn a profit from construction; the value was recently estimated at only $2 billion. Nonetheless, the costly tower will be completed in 2013, if no more delays take place.
