Kuala Lumpur Petronas Towers is still the tallest building in Southeast Asia. Standing at 452 metres with 88-floors, the Twin Towers were built in 1998 and have been holding the throne ever since. The pride of Malaysians is also the world’s fifth tallest building, behind Hong Kong International Commerce Centre (484 metres), Shanghai World Financial Centre (492 metres), Taipei 101 (509 metres) and of course, Burj Khalifa at 828 metres.

 

Soon, that trophy will be Thailand’s. Bangkok will be the city to the Southeast Asia’s tallest building when the proposed “Super Tower” is completed in 2019. Also known as “Rama IX Super Tower”, the 615 metres and 125-storey tower would dwarf even its existing cousins – Baiyoke Tower II (304 metres) and under-construction MahaNakhon (315 metres). Still, MahaNakhon could still enjoy the Thailand’s tallest building privilege for a short while, when it’s completed in 2016, before Super Tower comes to reality.

Designed by Architects 49 Ltd., the “Super Tower” will be developed by Grand Canal Land Limited or simply “G Land”. The ambitious project covers 73 rai (11.7-hectare) of land in the Grand Rama 9 mixed-use development site near the intersection of Ratchadapisek Road. The 100-billion-baht (US$3 billion; £1.9 billion; RM10 billion) 320,000-sq-metre Super Tower  will offer 90,000 sq metres of office space and house a “six-star” hotel with 260 rooms.

Interestingly, if Super Tower is completed today, it will be the third-tallest in the world and the highest in the Asean region, obviously. If the tower could be completed according to its schedule, Super Tower will be the world’s ninth tallest. G Land’s major shareholders included his Charoenkrit Enterprise (holds a 37% stake), the Channel 7 group (with 33% stake), Bangkok Bank (5% stake), and Italian-Thai Development Group.

However, “Super Tower” is only a temporary name for the project, and could change as the construction progress. The project has been in discussion and on-off-on kind of status. But analysts believe the Thailand government, which was seized militarily, and martial law is still in place, desperately needs a vote of confidence in the country’s economy – hence the Super Tower.

Fortunately, Indonesia’s proposed Signature Tower in Jakarta was cancelled. Supposedly to start work this year and scheduled to complete in 2020, at 638 metres, Signature Tower would have become the tallest in Southeast Asia. Another controversial building in Malaysia – Warisan Merdeka or simply KL118 – is scheduled for completion in 2020. First planned to be slightly taller than 509 m (1,670 ft), surpassing Taipei 101, the proposed height of Warisan Merdeka Tower has been revised to 610 metres.

Criticised as another wasteful project costing taxpayers at least RM5 billion (US$1.5 billion; £960 million), Warisan Merdeka could still emerge the tallest building in Asian, if they wanted to. Since the completion date for the Super Tower is one year earlier than KL118, Najib administration can still get the contractor to install some antennas, about 6 metres high so that it can beat Super Tower – by 1 metre taller (*grin*). Anyway, existing Petronas Twin Towers can still boast that it’s still the tallest because, well, it has “two towers”.

 

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October 16th, 2014 by financetwitter

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