KL118 Tower to be among world's tallest
Published on: Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Kuala Lumpur: The KL118 Tower by state-owned fund manager Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) is set to be among the world's top 10 tallest structures when completed by 2020.It would have a top-of-crown elevation of 570 metres and together with the building spire will give it a total official height of 682m.Designed by Australian architecture company Fender Katsalidis Architects, KL118 will surpass the 88-storey Petronas Twin Towers (452m) as Malaysia's tallest building and become a new landmark in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre.
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PNB is the owner of the KL118 project, while PNB Merdeka Ventures Sdn Bhd, a PNB-owned unit, is the project owner and developer.Currently, the world' tallest structure is Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, standing at 828 metres (163 levels).However, Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is under construction and it would be the world's tallest, surpassing Burj Khalifa with 252 floors (1,000m) when completed in 2019.There are other structures in the pipeline, including the Azerbaijan (1,050m), Wuhan Riverfront Erqi Tower (808m) and Qianhai Tower (800m), both in China.
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By 2020, the Signature Tower Jakarta in Indonesia will take to the skyline, standing at 638m (113 levels).KL118 is part of a larger development complex known as Warisan Merdeka (Heritage Independence), which will feature four residential towers and a shopping mall.
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Warisan Merdeka is expected to generate a gross development value of more than RM6 billion.The whole development, located in the vicinity of many heritage buildings, including Petaling Street, Methodist Boys School and Victoria Institution, will take shape on a 7.6ha site located within the area of Stadium Merdeka and Stadium Negara.Despite the strong supply of commercial space entering the market in the next few years with Tradewinds Square and Tun Razak (TRX), PNB Merdeka Ventures is not expected to have much trouble leasing the tower.Out of the 100 of the skyscapers's 118 floors up for rent, 60 floors have been set aside for PNB and certain subsidaries that have international exposure.Another 20 floors have been earmarked for a 250-room hotel to be operated by an international luxury hotel group that may be Park Hyatt, while 20 more levels have been allocated for multinational companies and Malaysian firms.The remaining 18 floors include two levels for an observation deck at the highest point of the tower at 476.7m.The rest of the space will be occupied by a business centre, elevators, recreational and maintenace facilities, as well as parking levels for up to 5,000 bays.The net lettable area for the office space alone, excluding the hotel portion, is about 150,000 sq m.KL118 will be connected to a mass rapid transit station.The building will have green features that will enable the company to apply for leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) and green building intiatives (GBI) ratings.There will be 105 elevators and escalators which will be supplied by Finnish firm KONE Corp. The top elevator speed will be 10m/s.Meanwhile, a consortium of South Korea-listed Samsung C&T Corp and its local partner UEM Group Bhd has won a US$505 million (RM2.12 billion) construction job for the KL118 Tower.Samsung C&T has experienced in building skyscrapers, which include the Petronas Twin Towers and the Burj Khalifa.Other groups which submitted bids for the construction contract were IJM Corp-Norwest Holdings Sdn Bhd-Shimizu Corp, Malaysian Resources Corp Bhd-China State Construction Enginerring Corp, WCT Bhd-Arabtec Construction LLC, TSR Capital Bhd-Daewoo Group and Seacera Group Bhd-Spaz Sdn Bhd-China's Shinohydro Corp-Shanghai Construction Group.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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