Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema announced yesterday that construction will begin next year on what would be the third-tallest tower building in the world.
“As you know the plan for Koh Pich, it includes a tall building. It will start being built at the beginning of 2012,” Mr Chuktema said at the opening of a new bridge, named the Rainbow Bridge, to Koh Pich in Chamkar Mon district.
Plans for the construction of the Diamond Tower, which were first announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen in September 2010, call for a height of 555 meters, but with only 50 stories, to be built on the north end of the island.
Mr Chuktema said the height of the tower could still change.
“If it cannot be built at 555 meters, we will build it 456 meters tall,” he said.
However, Charles Vann, spokesman for Overseas Cambodia Investment Corp, which is overseeing the project, said that he was uncertain when construction on Diamond Tower would begin.
“We are still in the planning stages of the project and will wait until they are finished until we will share any information,” he said. “At this point and time, I don’t have the full details.”
The antennae-shaped tower, whose design was inspired by the shape of a lotus flower, is expected to have an observation deck 500 meters above ground, and will cost about $200 million, Touch Samnang, the project manager for OCIC’s Diamond Island City project, said last year.
The 110-meter-long Rainbow Bridge, which was inaugurated yesterday and is the third bridge to Koh Pich, connects to the south end of the island.
If built, Diamond Tower would be the world’s third-tallest building, shorter only than Japan’s 634-meter, $846 million New Tokyo Tower, and China’s 600-meter, 108-story Canton Tower. It would overtake Taiwan’s $1.80 billion Taipei 101, standing at 509.2 meters and complete with 106 stories, 101 of which are above ground.
