Chinese Developer Breaks Ground on World’s Tallest Building, Despite Skepticism Surrounding Project

By Alex Girda, Associate Editor

One of the more puzzling high-profile development projects in recent years is reportedly still on track after China Broad Group held a groundbreaking event for its world’s tallest building plan.

The company has previously proven its revolutionary prefab technology, which allows for major structures to be erected within days, and has previously voiced its intention to construct a 220-story building in a 90-day interval. Since then, news of the project has slowed down but the structure dubbed Sky City One is apparently back on track with a reported budget of around $850 million.

The 90-day timeframe was extended for the project in its current form, to around nine months, which sounds slightly less ambitious on the developer’s part, but will still be quite the achievement when compared to the structure it aims to eclipse. The change in timeframe will include the 120 days it will take the company to produce the prefab components necessary for the construction process. The Burj Khalifa, presently the world’s tallest building at 2,722 feet, was completed after a five-year-long process and an investment of around $1.5 billion. Sky City One, previously dubbed J220, would shatter that construction schedule using its prefab technologies and stopping 27 feet farther away from Earth than the current record.

The project will serve around 30,000 people offering office, residential and retail components, as well as a hospital, schools and a vertical garden that could support most the population indoors. The project hopes to reduce the need for cars and trains as it will provide everything residents need including workplace proximity, which would keep the environmentally conscious direction that Broad Group has taken during the past decade.

Sky City One is a peculiar project given its unconventional construction technology and seeming unpreparedness, as WorldPropertyChannel.com recently pointed out the wave of skepticism that the project has produced in the architectural world. Although Broad Group insisted that its prefab technology is sound and has passed thorough testing in the wind tunnel, a large number of eyebrows remains raised over the prospect of having the world’s largest building in the city of Changsha, Hunan province.