News Snippets From All Beats

An Abu Dhabi investment firm is negotiating to purchase New York Chrysler building for 800 million.¹ That purchase would add to several other landmark purchases made by super-rich Arab nations, including the GM building sold last month to a group of investors that include Kuwait and Qatar. What’s interesting about the Abu Dhabi acquisition is what is taking place elsewhere in the United Emirates (of which Abu Dhabi is the capital city).

Dubia continues in an unprecedented skyscraper building spree that incorporates Western architectural styles, and the efforts of Western architects who have been lured there by seemingly limitless investment capital that is funding large real estate development projects. With the mass of new projects already completed in the hot new tourist destination, Dubai is competing with other famous cities of the world, such as Paris and New York, for prestige and attracting more tourism and investment.

There is an aspect to competition that might prove too inviting for Dubia and other Arab countries to ignore: monopoly. What is to stop the new owners of American landmarks from dismantling them in order to secure their own standing as the only architecturally stunning metropolis in the world? After all, open season was declared on the American skyline by Muslim extremists in this decade, and the idea of transplanting skylines for municipal aggrandizement and to attack more tourism is not uncommon. Look at Las Vegas.

Notes:

^1. Lois Weiss, “On the Block: Sovereign Arab Fund to Pay 800M,” New York Post, June 11, 2008.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06112008/business

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