I Best viewed together with its companion website: www.opportunities.com.lb Issue 160 October 2010 I Burgers invade Ashrafieh I Doha: A hill and a posh lifestyle I Free zone for Tripoli I Investment bankers: Real work needed! Articles selected from: NUCLEAR Arab Gulf countries planning civilian usage page 74 Also included Due process in Dubai raised some eyebrows Sawiris goes to Europe EUROPE It hasn’t collapsed as some had predicted. But keep your fingers crossed page 80 Also included Fashionistas are being helped by an online game GULF AIRLINES Three developing giants are making the rules of the game Landmark page 85 buildings Redefining the skyline of Beirut A publication of Lebanon LL9,000 • Saudi Arabia SR15 • Kuwait KD2 • UAE AED15 • Bahrain BD3 • Qatar QR15 • Jordan JD3 • Europe 4 • UK £3 • USA $5 • Canada C$6 ZOOMCOVER STORY Links: Click this article’s entry in ‘Table of Contents’ on our website Landmark buildings are what’s novel I 62 I LEBANON OPPORTUNITIES, OCTOBER 2010 hey have become the staple of trendy architects. Some architects and T developers prefer calling them buildings of distinction. But what is certain is that a number of them will soon redefine the shape of the city skyline, and even the feel of the capital’s downtown. Here’s the novel of Nouvel and others. With their sumptuous interiors, distinctive details, and buyers ready to pay millions for the views and luxury living they promise, ‘landmark buildings’ have been rising across Beirut’s skyline as the property market booms. Today’s landmark properties are distinguished more by what owners can do inside them, their facilities and environmental features, than by how they appear from the outside. Yet rising costs of construction and a dormant demand for upper-end landmark property, where prices range between $13,000 and $20,000 per square meter, mean construction can often be as much about an architect’s legacy as it is bottom line returns. As the select group of Beirut Terraces is Herzog & de Meuron’s first major project in the region developers in the landmark market wait to see if land prices will remain at their peak, or Rizk Tower in Ashrafieh, which was built in cash is no longer as viable as the recent past fall slightly in the coming months, the the seventies, as the first real landmark and their investments today are longer interim period has created what is known as apartment tower. Others note a more term, more about enhancing their legacies a buyer’s market. Filling this are local notorious landmark that incorporated than about turning a quick buck. Both the buyers active in the market for smaller, less mixed-use shopping center and a concert Marina Tower and Platinum, waterfront expensive landmark property, where prices hall – the battle scarred Holiday Inn locations built in the past five years, made average around $6,500 per square meter, healthy profits for their developers. And for and where property can be quickly re-sold DEVELOPERS EXPENSES buyers who got in early, these original for a profit. In both building and land costs, developers landmark buildings represented the chance pay a premium of around 30 percent more to double money in just a few years. Today, LAY OF THE LAND for being in the prime locations that a said Gholam, “the developer is making the The landmark market is driven by a select landmark building demands and to pay for client pay a premium due to the rise in group of local architects and developers. For often specialized building operations. “To construction costs, so the end user now has a projects that are in progress this group acquire land is becoming more and more much smaller margin.” According to Halaby, would include Bassim Halaby of the Beirut expensive, and today it has become 40-45 however, developers are continuing to Terraces, Nabil Gholam of Skygate and percent of the value of the project, compared absorb most of the higher building and land Ziyad Alshaar of The Landmark. to traditionally being about a third,” said costs themselves and are not passing them Established landmark residential buildings Halaby, an architect-turned-developer and on to clients. are Marina Towers, by architects Kohn CEO of Benchmark, the developer behind the Pedersen Fox Associates and Platinum eye-catching Beirut Terraces tower block in BIGGER, TOUGHER Tower by architects Gholam and Ricardo downtown. “We’ve hit a slowdown as we hit At the high end of the market – which is Bofill. Platinum is the tallest building in the 45 percent mark on land. When I am essentially Gulf Arabs or super-rich Beirut, standing 153 meters high. Getting buying at 45 percent for the land, then a Lebanese expatriates in the Gulf or in elite developers and architects to agree on further 45 percent on the construction, what Europe – flats of over 500 meters square can the definition of a landmark building is I am left with is only ten percent [of the total sell for up to $10 million. At this level, buyers difficult. Most agree they do not like the investment], which is not sustainable for the are not interested in buying into the term, which they consider to be a derisive developer.” Developers are reluctant to landmark building for the investment, but word used by the media to describe a disclose the exact level of profits previous exclusively for stability and quality of life in a building of distinction – something that landmark buildings made, although few second home. These buyers belong to a jet set cannot be missed. For some, this might deny that much money was made when land of locals or Gulf Arabs who travel back and mean the Phoenicia InterContinental Hotel prices were dramatically less than today. Yet forth on a permanent shuttle between the or simply The Grand Serail. For others it both the developers of Beirut Terraces and Middle East and Europe, with a stop off in might be the Virgin Megastore or even a gas The Landmark, when pushed, complained of Beirut for shopping, relaxing, and leisure. station in Gemmayzeh. Some point to the tight operating margins suggesting easy Ziyad Alshaar, developer of the super high- LEBANON OPPORTUNITIES, OCTOBER 2010 I 63 I ZOOMCOVER STORY end Landmark project, notes the market has schemes allowing buyers to put down 20 In Skygate, solar panel will hit a temporary plateau, which he believes is percent of the final costs up front – which produce all the because of the political grievances being aired attracts local investors who are looking for a hot water in the media, which have kept wealthy Gulf deal they can sell for a profit. Arab clients away. Alshaar is confident the market will soon lift again and insists that in THE LANDMARK the meantime there are sales being made There may be demand by locals for smaller, within the wealthy community of Lebanese less expensive landmark property, but Ziyad expatriates who use Beirut as a second home. Alshaar, developer of the confidently titled Landmark project, believes so much in the SMALLER, EASIER return of the super-rich jet set to Beirut that At the lower end of the market, landmark his super-tower complex will be selling buildings are only a fifth more expensive to apartments for as much as $20,000 per purchase than non-landmarks in the same square meter. The Landmark in downtown prime location in downtown Beirut. The aims to be a kind of millionaires’ village, a trend is for smaller, more efficient living destination in its own right. Landmark will spaces, in demand by locals, rather than set a new standard in what developers call Gulf Arabs. With tighter margins these ‘mixed-use’ – Providing everything the jet- days, investors need to know whether set could needs within one huge complex. landmark buildings stand up as viable The apartments and integrated hotel will investments – or are just the vanity of span 15,000 square meters alone, while the architects, developers and richer investors. building hosts 11 cinema screens, is home to For the majority of the clients, a building not 20,000 square meters of boutiques and has only has to look distinctive, but has to have underground car parking for almost 900 superior fittings that correspond with the cars. Once built, this unusual-looking white work ethos of Lebanese self-made, new tower, will set a new standard in money.“Everyone wants to do ‘landmark’ at differentiation. “It will be a true landmark. the moment,” said Gholam. “But these days Nothing will touch it,” said Alshaar. “The more and more clients are asking for smaller interiors are something else. We have places compared to a few years ago as a 500 consultants for everything, even acoustics. square meter apartment at $6,000 per meter The only problem we have is how to bring the is a three million dollar place, which is out of costs down, so now we are working on the the league of most clients in Lebanon.” costs.” As Landmark architect Jean Nouvel Gholam said new clients place a “high said at a client presentation: “We want to demand on efficiency in layout” with create the desire to come here, stay here, a ‘pairing’ or ‘half-pairing’ a trend to look out place that is calm, comfortable, ‘hedonistic’”. for (where clients buy two apartments and Alshaar believes high end customers will knock through a door). Daycare for children, want a bit of flexibility in how they use their health centers, and pools are all expected new apartments. A trend he believes will now, along with convenience shops and take off is a new concept in the ‘service energy conservation.