Higher and higher vanities(2)

One certainty is that Broad Sustainable Building (BSB), a subsidiary of Broad Group, signed an agreement with Wangcheng district government on June 5, 2012. From then, the group said the tower would be finished within seven months, but nothing happened for over a year.

On July 24, four days after the ground-breaking ceremony, local media reported that Sky City was ordered to halt construction by the local government, since it hadn't gone through the right application procedures. This was also verified by the Global Times at the time.

So far, a final conclusion has not yet been reached. The review and evaluation of the tower are still under way and thus building is still delayed.

However, the group's CEO Zhang Yue denied this in an article named "Sky City's positive energy," which the group sent to the Global Times by e-mail on August 1.

"We are utterly devoted to building Sky City, but until now, we have only faced doubts and insults. We were never notified to stop the project, but the whole world is cheering about the fact the project was "halted," the article reads.

Environmental protection organizations have stated that the project would destroy the local ecology, given the amount of water it would take from nearby wetlands, since even work on its foundations would require drawing water from nearby wetlands. But Zhang excoriated his doubters for lacking logic.

"The higher the building is, the less land resources we'll use, and thus more trees and crops can be planted. This contributes to a much better ecology," Zhang wrote.

But Feng Yongfeng, initiator of Nature University, an NGO dedicated to environmental protection, holds different opinions.

Feng wrote on his Weibo that the construction of Sky City would see the filling in of Daze Lake, a very important wetland for the local environment and one of the last wetlands in Changsha which is essential for migratory birds.

Feng's organization has dispatched teams of volunteers in Changsha to document the building site.

However, Zhang has still not addressed the most pressing issue, whether Broad has already obtained the necessary construction permits. The media have interpreted this stance as Zhang seeking to hide the truth.

"Some people say we have started construction without going through the right procedures. Nobody would make such a silly mistake, neither Broad Group nor the local government," he replied.

Media coup?

The architecture community has also been greatly concerned about the quality of Sky City's construction, and whether there is a demand for such an edifice.

One of those concerned is Jiang Huancheng, with Shanghai Xian Dai Architectural Design Group and an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Jiang famously designed the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower, 468 meters high, in Shanghai.

Jiang says that the move could make sense as skyscrapers are sprouting in many Chinese cities while many local governments or enterprises are competing for the honor of building the highest structure in a certain region.

"It's like an advertisement and this marketing effect is possibly more powerful than the towers themselves," said Jiang.

However, Jiang strongly emphasized that feasibility studies are essential before towers are built, and that local authorities must guide enterprises to do so correctly, no matter the expected benefits to economic development.

Jiang estimated that it usually takes four to five years to build a super-high tower in most countries, with the safest top speed at one story every three days. At this rate, it would take almost two years to finish building Sky City.