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The Grollo tower will go ahead after all - just not in Melbourne.
The Grollo Corporation has signed a $3 billion deal to develop the world's tallest building in the Middle Eastern capital of Dubai.
Grocon will join with the biggest development company in the Arab Emirates, Emaar Properties, to build a tower of between 520 and 600 metres on Dubai's Sheikh Zahed Road.
It would be a replica of the $1 billion high-tech tower proposed by Grocon for the Docklands precinct, but rejected by the Kennett Liberal government in 1999.
It would be taller than the world's highest building - the Petronas Towers of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia - built in 1998 at a height of 452 metres, trumping the Sears Tower in Chicago that was built in 1974 at 442 metres. China is building the Shanghai World Financial Centre to a height of 492 metres but the Dubai tower will dominate it.
In a coup for the young Grocon director, Daniel Grollo, the Middle Eastern tower, to be known as "Burj Dubai", is planned to rise from a huge man-made island in the middle of a 22,000-apartment development that will encompass an area the size of Melbourne's Central Business District.
Emaar chairman Mohammed Ali Alabbar told Gulf News that the project would combine residential, commercial, hotel, entertainment and leisure outlets with open green spaces, water features, pedestrian boulevards, an "old town" and one of the world's largest shopping malls. "This project will create a new architectural landmark - a city within a city," he said.
Grocon has been battling business, industrial and cost pressures in Melbourne where construction costs have increased. The company was recently forced to withdraw from a multimillion-dollar development in Spring Street because of cost pressures. It has recently solved labour force problems in the construction of the $420 million MCG redevelopment.
Daniel Grollo said yesterday he was "delighted" to be involved with the Arab Emirates in a development of "such magnitude and historical scale".
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