Shanghai tops out world's third-highest building

Sep 14, 2007, 8:14 GMT

Shanghai - Officials and engineers held a topping-out ceremony on Friday for the world's third-tallest building, the 492-metre, 101-storey Shanghai World Financial Centre.

The lead constructor, Japan's Mori Building, said the tower will become an 'outstanding example of the merging of the state-of-the-art technology, knowledge and experience' when it is completed next spring.

Plans for the building include commercial facilities in the lower floors and office space from the 7th to 77th floors.

The 79th to the 93rd floors are earmarked for a Park Hyatt hotel.

According to Chinese state media reports, the average rent of office space in the tower will also be the highest in China, at up to 3.3 dollars per square metre per day.

Taiwan's landmark Taipei 101 tower is the world's tallest building in commercial use.

However, the Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) in the United Arab Emirates, scheduled for completion in late 2008, is already the world's highest construction at 545 metres.

The Burj Dubai is designed to reach at least 808 metres with 160 floors, its developer Emaar Properties said recently.

The Shanghai World Financial Centre will at least have the world's highest public observation platform - at 472 metres - when it opens next year, Mori Building said.

The tower occupies a 30,000-square-metre plot in Shanghai's Pudong business district and will have 377,300 square metres of floor space, including 226,900 square metres of offices.

Japan's Mizuho Corporate Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation have already signed rental agreements, Mori Building said.

The developers expect initial occupancy of about 40 per cent, rising to about 90 per cent within one year of opening, it said.

Estate agent Remy Chan, of Jones Lang LaSalle Asia-Pacific, told the Shanghai Daily newspaper he expected the availability of new office space in the tower to push the vacancy rate in Pudong up to about 5 per cent next year, from 1.9 per cent in June.

Construction of the tower began in 1997 but was suspended during the Asian financial crisis.