This week I wrote about Vancouver’s Shangri-La Tower which at 201 meters is the tallest tower in Vancouver. A “supertall” tower is classified as any tower over 300 meters high. With additional height comes additional costs when something goes wrong. In the case of the Shangri-La tower there is a defect in the windows which means they may shatter.
The cost for replacement is in the 60 million dollar range, and a trial of over three months is scheduled this Fall in court to figure out who is going to pay for what. In the interim, the two stratas in the building are pretty unhappy, and the limbo of such a huge bill may cloud any real estate sale or purchase.
I also outlined what has transpired with New York City’s 423 meter supertall tower at 432 Park Avenue, which got extra floors to maximize the view. This was done by taking advantage of a loophole to build mechanical room floors in the sky. Those are not counted as part of floor space ratio.
The 432 Park Avenue tower sways, whistles wind, spits and groans. An assessment found that “73 percent of mechanical, electrical and plumbing components observed failed to conform with the developers’ drawings, and that almost a quarter “presented actual life safety issues.”
One of our readers, engineer and planner David Grigg has written succinctly about Vancouver’s supertall and starchitect phenomenon:
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