What It Costs to Live in the World's Highest Building

On Jan 4, 2010, a new building opened in Dubai. The celebration was for the opening of the world's tallest building. The Burj Khalifa is the highest manmade structure on earth. This building is around 2,700 feet high. This height puts it at more than 1,000 feet higher than the building that previously held the record, the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan.

The Burj Khalifa building took just over 5 years to build, at a cost of around $1.5 billion. The opening celebration for the Burj Dubai consisted of a ceremony and a large fireworks display, and a light show, with music coreographed to the gigantic fountains around the Burj Dubai. The celebration was also celebrating the anniversary of the beginning of the rule of Sheik Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai. The building is 160+ stories tall, it will contain a luxury hotel, luxury apartments, and 37 floors of office space.

They say on a cloudless day, you can see across the Persian sea to Iran, 60 miles away. There is a public observation deck on floor 124 that is open to the public.

Recently the latest Mission Impossible movie with Tom Cruise was shot in Dubai, with several scenes in the movie being shot in and on the building.

The hotel in The Burj Khalifa is a Giorgio Armani designed 7-star hotel, with 160 luxury rooms. The hotel is the only 7-star hotel in the world at the time of opening. This photo is a rendering of what part of the public space in the building will look like.

There are 1044 luxury apartments in the Burj Khalifa building, 90% were sold before the building even opened. The most expensive apartment will cost $3.5 million. There are 2 pools in the building, one on floor 70 and one on floor 158. The apartments are also Giorgio Armani designed for added luxury, Tenants started moving in in Feb 2011.

There are apartments for rent in the building as of March 2023. The cost is from 10,600 per month to 31,600 per month.

There is also a fitness facility, valet parking, a cigar bar, and a special market available for the residents.

There are 37 floors of office space in the world's tallest building. The current economic conditions are having a negative effect on leasing the office space. The Burj Khalifa is one incredibly unique and spectacular building and I'm sure the office space will fill up soon.

There is a very cool picture from an article on Mail online taken by a couple of photographers that spent most of the day in the rain on an unrelated photo shoot. There was a huge and violent thunderstorm moving through Dubai and they just happened to take the shot at the right time to capture the lightning striking the top of the world's tallest building.

This just happened on Feb 14, 2014. Check out the shot it's cool.

There have been some disputes over user fees for the building over recent months. The fees are on top of the rents for one-bedroom apartments in the building that are said to be around $55,000 per year, or over $4500 per month. The rent must be paid in full in advance for the entire year. That is expensive enough. The fees that allow the residents to use the elevators and have access to other parts of the building add another $25,000 per year to the cost of living there.

Some residents are disputing the high fees and not paying them, and management has threatened to shut off the air conditioning and shut down the elevators if they don't pay. They don't have to tell the residents about the extra fees when they rent the apartment and pay the money up front. Then they get the bill for the fees and for some reason they are upset about adding another $2000 per month to the cost of living there.

There is a new building under construction in Saudi Arabia that will take the throne of the tallest building away from Burj Dubai when it is finished. Construction started in 2013. The building was initially said to be one mile high. It has been scaled back to a measly 1 kilometer high. The exact height is being kept a secret, but it will be in the 3300 ft area, some 500 to 600 ft higher than the Burj Dubai.