By Parag Deulgaonkar

The 838-metre Sky City, the world’s tallest tower, in Changsa, China, will be completed by March 2014.



“We will spend four months for prefabrication and three months for installation onsite. Total seven months will be needed. We plan to commence construction by September and complete the tower by March 2014,” a person aware of the plans told Emirates 24|7 on conditions of anonymity.



Construction work on the tower will commence in August (end), Broad Group Chairman Zhang Yue said at the recently concluded Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) London Conference.



The 828-metre Burj Khalifa in Dubai is currently the world's tallest tower.



Yue, in his presentation, said: “Land use is a top concern in China. Occupation of the land has caused a lot of social and environmental issues. It has created huge demand for transportation and energy consumption. In the end, energy conservation is the focus of everything.”



He proposed to solve the land use problem with a prefabricated vertical city, to be assembled in factories and bolted together on site.



Earlier in a video, the developer revealed the tower would have a garden on the topmost floor and open terraces, with the company dubbing the development as “One Building, One City, Sky City.”



Broad Group, previously, said it plans to build the tower in three months.



It will have 202 floors, with 1.05 million square metre space. It will withstand a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, will be fireproof resistant for up to three hours and have 10 fire escape routes for evacuation of a floor within 15 minutes during an emergency.



The tower will have 15cm thermal insulators, fresh air heat recovery system, non-electric air conditioners, cooling-heating power system and LED lighting.

The projected cost is four billion yuan (Dh2.35 billion) and will be able to house 31,400 people.



Currently, four countries, excluding China, are vying to build the world's tallest tower. Kingdom Holding Company has announced that it will complete the 1,000-metre high tall Kingdom Tower in Jeddah by mid-2017.



The highest occupiable floor will be Level 163; Observatory Deck will be at Level 125 (502 metres); Restaurant will be at Level 127 (510 metres) and Sky Terrace will be at Level 157 (630 metres).



In May, Emaar Properties Chairman Mohamed Alabbar said Dubai could accommodate a tower taller than Burj Khalifa.



“We may try to build something a little taller. The emirate needs another tall building. Dubai is only about 30-year old, so we have a lot of time and lot of investment left,” he had said at the Africa Global Business Forum 2013.



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