Miapolis is a proposed mega-tall skyscraper in Miami, in the United States, the building was expected to surpass Burj Khalifa to become the next tallest building in the world.
Below are facts about Miapolis.
Name: Miapolis
The building's name Miapolis is a hybrid of its city's name Miami and the word 'metropolis', the building is aimed to become a self-sufficient vertical city that contains most of the amenities needed for daily lives.
Location:
Miapolis was proposed to be built on east side of Watson Island, a man-made island situated just east of Miami's central business district in the Biscayne Bay. The island is connected to the mainland and South Beach by the MacArthur Causeway. The complex of Miapolis would occupy most area of the island on both sides of the causeway, the site for the tower of Miapolis is at the east side, which is currently occupied by a zoological theme park named Jungle Island.
Height:
The architectural height of Miapolis is 975 meters or 3200 feet, the highest occupied floor would be slightly over 800 meters or 2625 feet.
With such a thrilling height, Miapolis would absolutely dwarf the skyscrapers in Downtown Miami, most of which are lower than 600 feet. The building is about 500 feet taller than current world's tallest building Burj Khalifa, and almost two times the height of One World Trade Center, which is currently America's tallest building.
If built today in 2018, Miapolis is tallest building in the world. If all the current ongoing skyscraper projects are complete, Miapolis ranks 3rd in height, after Dubai Creek Tower and Jeddah Tower.
Uses:
Miapolis is a mixed-use building, it contains residences, office spaces, hotels, observation deck, conference center, retail stores, shopping mall, restaurants, an indoor amusement park, gardens, the building even has its own marina.
With all these amenities and facilities equipped, people reside in Miapolis can live there without leaving the island.
There are one thousand residential units in Miapolis, including affordable housing at its large podium and luxurious condominiums at its upper floors. The building would contain a hotel that has 792 rooms. 1 million square feet of floor area in the building are remained for office space.
An open-air viewing platform is planned at its roof, right below the building's two giant spires. At around 800 meters off the ground, the viewing platform would become the highest observatory in the world. The visibility from the observatory can be over 60 miles on clear days.
Aside from the viewing platform, there's also a rotating sky lounge below it, offering 360 degree views of the city skyline, Biscayne Bay, and the sea.
Design and Development:
In 2010, after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai completed as tallest building in the world, a developer named Guillermo Socarras living in Miami announced the plan for a building taller than Burj Khalifa for the city he lives in, he had envisioned the building in joint with the local architectural firm Kobi Karp nearly a decade ago, the building would be 3200 feet high and built on Watson Island in Miami, it has 160 floors and occupies an area of 11 hectares.
Guillermo named his project as Miapolis, wishing the building become a self-sufficient vertical city that has all the amenities necessary for residents' daily lives. Guillermo claims Miapolis will create 42,000 construction jobs and thousands of permanent jobs, and will inject $2.5 billion annually into the city's economy.
Miapolis is designed to be certified LEED Platinum, many Eco-friendly elements are applied on the building, solar and wind technologies is integrated in the design of the building to save energy needed for this vertical city, water desalination technology is used in the building to provide part of potable water for residents in the building.
Although the building was designed and the proposal was reported by medias worldwide, the construction on the building never happened. The project is estimated to cost $22 billion, it's very difficult to find financial backing for the project, especially in 2010 when the global economy was in a downturn.
Another reason that hinders the development of the tower comes from its unprecedented height, Watson Island is located not far from the airport of Miami, a building with that height will potentially impact the security of flights. Even its location is far away from the airport, the building of that height still can't be approved, since Federal Aviation Administration puts restriction on height of all the buildings throughout America, any building in the country can't be built taller than 2000 feet, at 3200 feet, Miapolis seriously exceeds the restriction.
Moreover, being a building of that size, the local citizens or some social groups will protest against it.