Zanzibar on Tuesday announced plans to build sub-Saharan Africa’s tallest skyscraper, with the US$1.3 billion bill exceeding the archipelago’s annual budget by more than 60 percent.
The 70-story Zanzibar Domino Commercial Tower is to be developed on the west coast, 15km from the UNESCO World Heritage site of Stone Town.
The development project would involve the creation of an artificial island, along with a marina for yachts and cruise ships.
At more than 3 trillion Tanzanian shillings, the total outlay would surpass the semiautonomous archipelago’s budget for fiscal year 2021-2022 by more than 60 percent.
Zanzibar Minister of Labor, Economy and Investment Mudrik Ramadhan Soraga told reporters that the project would bolster the “government’s efforts in inviting more local and foreign investors to the isles.”
ICONIC DESIGN
The finished project would offer 560 apartments, luxury hotels, resorts, a golf course and a wedding chapel, the New York and Dubai-based design firm xCassia, Tanzania’s AICL Group and Scotland’s Crowland Management said in a statement.
VISIONARY INVESTOR
“[The development was] first sketched in Paris in 2009, after my late father, my two sons and I played a round of dominos,” design firm founder Jean-Paul Cassia said in the statement. “I dreamed of building this project for more than a decade.”
“It had all of the bearings of an icon that anyone could remember, Cassia said.
“All it lacked was the right visionary investor and site to make it come true,” he added.
Once finished, the skyscraper would be Africa’s second-tallest building, after Egypt’s 80-story Iconic Tower, which is to be completed next year.
The continent’s tallest building in use is the 55-story Leonardo in Sandton, Johannesburg.
Famed for its turquoise waters and spice plantations, Zanzibar relies heavily on tourism.
The archipelago sustained a tremendous hit from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A coalition of civil rights groups on Tuesday asked a New York State judge to order one of its largest suburban counties to stop its deployment of nearly 600 license plate readers, calling it a warrantless and “indiscriminate surveillance system” that violates the state constitution. The class action lawsuit also alleged that Westchester County never got proper authorization to launch the program, which has amassed a database of 1.6 billion plate scans that has been shared with more than 50 outside law enforcement agencies. The complaint said the network “records the long-term travel patterns, daily habits, and intimate information of millions of
Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday blessed a giant new tower at Barcelona’s famed Sagrada Familia Basilica after celebrating mass inside what is now the world’s tallest church. A fireworks and light show illuminated the exterior of the temple at the end of the ceremony, bathing the unfinished basilica in shifting colours that highlighted its towering spires. A choir of 600 singers performed at the service which lasted around 90 minutes and was attended by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as well as King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. The stained-glass windows in various colours shone brightly in between the tree-like
Voters in Switzerland yesterday cast their ballots on an initiative championed by the top right-wing party to cap the Alpine country’s population at 10 million. As of press time last night, early results showed that Swiss voters were leaning against it. The populist Swiss People’s Party, which has the most seats in parliament, has stirred up and fostered anti-migration sentiment over the years, notably about an influx of workers from the neighboring EU. Critics called the bid a self-inflicted wound, saying the boom in migration over the past generation has brought foreign labor and skills to sectors such as healthcare, finance, pharmaceuticals
Scientists have discovered communities of marine life — including jellyfish, tubeworms and brittle stars — thriving on a whale graveyard. The graveyards form when whale carcasses fall to the sea floor, becoming a sustaining snack for nearby critters. This one, which is up to 7km below the surface of the southeastern Indian Ocean, spans the largest area, and is so far the deepest found. A whale’s sheer size and the unique chemistry of its bones are the keys to forming these unique underwater neighborhoods, said Song Xikun (宋希坤), a biologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering
RSS