Mumbai, Dubai in Race to Build the Tallest Residential Tower

June 10 (Bloomberg) -- Developers in Mumbai and Dubai are in a race to build the world’s tallest residential tower as they try to tap demand among swelling billionaire ranks for luxury homes costing more than $10 million.

Lodha Developers Ltd. said on June 8 its 442-meter (1,450 feet) World One property in India’s financial capital will be the tallest when completed in 2014. Trident International Holdings said the same day that its delayed 516-meter Pentominium tower in Dubai will be finished by 2013.

Apartments at World One, designed by the architects behind the Louvre pyramid in Paris, will sell for as much as 500 million rupees ($10.6 million), Managing Director Abhisheck Lodha said at a press conference on June 8. The company is in talks with private-equity investors to fund part of the project, which will cost 20 billion rupees to build, he said.

“As development happens and business grows here, there is a shift of wealth with new billionaires in Asia who are seeking luxury, marquee properties,” said Anurag Mathur, the Gurgaon, New Delhi-based managing director at Cushman & Wakefield Inc.’s Indian unit.

If both buildings are completed according to their schedules, the Pentominium would be the tallest and World One the second-tallest residential tower, according to Marshall Gerometta, database editor at the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The tallest residential building is the 323-meter Q1 on Australia’s Gold Coast in Queensland state.

Apartments in Pentominium in the Dubai Marina area will sell for as much as 40 million dirhams ($10.9 million), said Ayush Kukreti, Trident’s senior vice president of marketing, strategy and planning.

Billionaire Ranks

Asian billionaires including India’s Mukesh Ambani and Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing increased their wealth as the region’s rich expanded their fortunes at the world’s quickest pace in the past year, according to Forbes magazine. Billionaires in the region have a combined worth of $729 billion, up from $357 billion a year ago, Forbes said in March. The wealth of their U.S. and European peers rose 18 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

The number of Indian billionaires rose to 49 from 24, Forbes said. Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd., and Lakshmi Mittal, chairman and chief executive officer of ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, are Asia’s wealthiest individuals, according to Forbes.

“World One will cater to the aspirations of the global Indian,” Lodha said.

The development on a 17-acre plot that used to be a textile mill in the central district of Mumbai will include three residential towers, Lodha said. The tallest will have 117 stories. The project is expected to generate revenue of about 50 billion rupees, he said.

Sea Views

Mumbai-based Lodha, which is planning an initial share sale, will offer three- to five-room apartments and duplexes on the top floors of World One with views of the Arabian Sea and the city’s horse-racing track, according to a company statement.

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP, who created the Louvre pyramid in Paris and the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, will design the project, Lodha said.

“Every global city is made memorable by its architectural landmarks,” Lodha said.

Lodha is will start selling the project by the end of this month. The cheapest apartment will cost 75 million rupees and the construction will be completed by 2014, the managing director said.

Pentominium

Dubai-based Trident delayed the Pentominium project’s completion by two years after the economic slowdown, Kukreti said in a phone interview on June 8. The developer said in 2007 it was building the world’s tallest residential tower.

Trident has received the second installment from buyers about three months ago and will finish the project by 2013, Kukreti said. The company hired Arabian Construction Co. to build the tower at a cost of about $400 million, he said.

Each apartment in Pentominium will occupy one floor and will range from 6,500 square feet (604 square meters) to 7,500 square feet, Kukreti said. The project will include 24 penthouses designed by Salvatore Ferragamo.

Dubai, the second-biggest sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates, experienced the world’s worst property slump during the global recession, with selling prices falling by more than 50 percent and project cancellations exceeding $300 billion.

By contrast, the world’s second-fastest pace of economic growth has fuelled a recovery in Mumbai property values. Home prices in the city jumped about 30 percent in the six months to April, real-estate broker Knight Frank (India) Pvt. estimates.

“There is a cash crunch in Dubai and it will likely stay that way for the next couple of years,” said Saud Masud, an analyst at UBS AG in Dubai. “I doubt this project will be completed on time,” he said, referring to the Pentominium.