The fascination with super-tall buildings has become a world-wide phenomena that seems to be reaching ever higher & higher.
Major cities like New York, Dubai and Toronto have seen an explosion in growth of condo buildings above 75 storeys over the past decade with little sign of slowing down.
Buildings such as 432 Park Ave on New York Billionaire's Row were seen as the shining pinnacle of luxury living in our modern society with penthouse units selling for upwards of $80 million & a total project sell-out value of roughly $3.1 billion.
At 1400ft tall, this 85 storey building has unfortunately become an example of what can go wrong when you build too high.
The New York Times released an article titled "The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks" in February of this year which highlighted the continuous problems the building has experienced since construction was completed in December 2015.
Though marketed as a super-luxury building, there have been millions of dollars in water damage from plumbing/mechanical issues that stemmed from the buildings immense height.
In addition to this, there have been constant issues with the 10 elevators which service the 85 storeys. There was even one instance where a resident was stuck inside the elevator for over an hour as high-winds had caused the cables to slap against the walls of the elevator shaft.
The issues stemming from high winds not only affect the elevators but also causes the walls to creak as the metal partitions rub against each other.
As a result of all of these issues, the maintenance fees increased by nearly 40% in one year to cover the necessary costs & additional insurance needed for the building.
What's most disconcerting is that an independent study by an engineering firm "showed that 73% of the mechanical, electrical & plumbing components observed failed to conform with the developer's drawings, and that almost a quarter "presented actually life safety issues".
This problem is not isolated to New York and is actually already affecting condos in Toronto.
I can speak to this from personal experience as I lived on the 44th floor of a 67-storey tower in Toronto's Entertainment District for a year and half.
The biggest issue that these tall buildings face are the elevators.
In my building, they split the 6 elevators between the lower floors (G - 30) and the upper floors (30 - 67) with another 2 elevators servicing the parking levels.
The problem is that the elevators get used way more than the prescribed amount from the manufacturer which causes parts to malfunction/need repair quite often and the turn-around time to get parts can take months in certain instances.
This would result in 1 or more elevators going out of service which caused massive lineups that could take 30 minutes or more to navigate.
An interesting stats that I calculated when I was moving out was if you take 3 elevator trips per day at an average of 2 minutes per trip, this works out to 2190 minutes/36.5 hours/1.5 days spent just getting to & from your unit (assuming everything is running properly & you don't ever have to wait).
Another big issue for these super tall buildings is that they are much harder to manage.
You're essentially doubling the amount of residents due to the increased height but they typically keep the same size management team as a normal 30-storey building.
This makes it much harder for security/property management to respond in a timely manner to issues such a noise violations, unit & common elements repairs, etc.
To make the situation even worse, many of these buildings suffer from poor build quality.
A lot of developers have a vested interest in completing the project as quick as possible with as little money needed which results in deficiencies to both the units and the common areas.
When I moved into my brand new suite on the 44th floor, there was a sizeable gap between the sliding Juliette balcony door & the frame which caused a huge whistling sound that made it impossible to stay in the unit until it was fixed.
The era of the super-tall condo appears to be just starting in Toronto though.
There are already several tall buildings throughout the Downtown Core including the Aura building at College Park that is 78 storeys tall & One Bloor East which is 75 storeys.
Our skyline will see numerous projects pop up over the next decade including the 95-storey "SkyTower" located at One Yonge St that will be Canada's tallest tower in addition to the Mirvish-Gehry development that consists of 2 building that will be 74 & 84 storeys tall.
My hope is that the developers of these super-tall buildings use 432 Park Ave as a cautionary-tale & truly study the impacts of constructing such a large building and everything that is needed to make it operate properly to withstand the test of time.
What do you think of these super-tall buildings being constructed in Toronto?
Let me know in the comments section below!
Rylie C.
Source
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/realestate/luxury-high-rise-432-park.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces&block=more_in_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=356204510&impression_id=ef8cc140-662e-11eb-98e4-4508d9377371&index=0&pgtype=Article®ion=footer&req_id=287316137&surface=more-in-new-york&variant=1_bandit-all-surfaces
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