Africa's tallest tower planned to rise 99 stories in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by 2017. Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, may boast Africa’s tallest building by 2017. While a 58-story building had been announced, plans unveiled by a private Chinese developer now call for a 99-story office-hotel tower. Guangdong Chuanhui Group has not revealed the building's estimated cost or other details, including financial arrangements or the names of the architect and engineer.The site for the Chuanhui International Tower is at the new Addis Ababa Exhibition Centre. The developer says it has acquired the 41,000 sq meter site and the building plans
Photo by Nural Alam, ADPC The eight-story reinforced-concrete building near Dhaka had three illegal floors and a fourth on the way; further, it was built for a commercial occupancy but used as a factory. A rapid structural assessment of the fatal collapse of an eight-story reinforced-concrete building near Dhaka, Bangladesh, uncovered major flaws in the building’s construction and multiple causes for the April 24 disaster. The building in Savar had been turned into a garment factory. To date, there have been more than 700 fatalities. The death toll is expected to rise to 1,000.The tragedy has triggered a review of
One month after a pipeline rupture sent 210,000 gal of heavy crude oil through an Arkansas neighborhood, officials announced initiation of a “reentry plan” so residents can start returning to their homes.That return will be “over the next few weeks,” according to a statement from the city-county-EPA-ExxonMobil command headquarters in Mayflower, Ark., near Little Rock.“We are working with the construction crews and local Unified Command now to try to finalize the details around dates/times for these questions, but we don’t have that just yet,” Russ Roberts, ExxonMobil spokesman, says in response to questions about when homes would be available for
Rendering Courtesy of PANYNJ The Goethals (rendering, top) and Bayonne bridges will likely stretch local resources. Image Courtesy of HDR Related Links: Bridge Job Gets Big Bump From Designers, Feds Construction officials in and around New York City celebrated on April 24 the award of nearly $3 billion in new bridge construction contracts as a boost to the region's economy and job growth.The awards, by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, include significant rehabs of two key bi-state crossings and the region's first major public-private partnership (P3) financing arrangement in the $1.5-billion project to replace the antiquated
Courtesy of Mass Rapid Transit Corp. Kuala Lumpur's mass rapid-transit line, now under construction, is worth more than $10 billion. Related Links: Viewpoint: Vietnam, Indonesia Hold Opportunity for U.S. Firms Kuala Lumpur's MRT Line Economic growth in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia will remain strong at an average 6% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. The countries represent the top five economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.While China’s recovery is “foggy,” with a growth rate of 7.8% last year to a forecasted 8.2% in 2013 and 8% in 2014, “ASEAN’s economy is
Morocco imports 95% of its energy. Its fortunes dependent on oil-price fluctuations, the country's trade deficit has been expanding.Renewable energy was an obvious solution for a country that has more than 2,000 miles of windy coasts along the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea and more than 3,000 hours of sunshine annually; it also has access to the biggest sand desert on the planet.With energy plants under construction that will generate solar, wind and hydro power on a scale never before seen in Africa, Morocco is turning very green. By 2020, the country plans to generate over 40% of its
Africa’s emerging wind-energy sector offers stability and promises to drive the region’s economy to double-digit growth by 2030, say observers. Developers and energy planners in the region hope to generate an additional 10.5 GW of clean and sustainable energy in the midterm, once ongoing and planned wind projects are fully developed.At least 16 wind-energy projects with a total capacity of 1.5 GW are under way on the continent, and another 9 GW worth of projects are planned in the near future. Currently, Africa has an installed wind-energy capacity of 1.1 GW, less than 0.5% of the global capacity.South Africa, Egypt,
Related Links: EPA Releases Framework to Give Cities More Flexibility in Managing Wastewater EPA Press Release on the Agreement Seattle and King County, Wash., will invest in multiyear sewage and combined stormwater collection upgrades, including piping and treatment, under agreements that were reached on April 16 with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Dept. of Ecology.The agreements will substantially reduce the amount of sewage and contaminated stormwater entering Puget Sound and pave the way for greater use of green infrastructure projects.Under its agreement, Seattle will develop and implement a long-term control plan—at an estimated cost of $500
Related Links: Calif. High-Speed Rail Backers Push 'System Blend' Bid Results Announced for First Leg of Calif. High-Speed Rail The California High-Speed Rail Authority's $68-billion high-speed-rail project recently announced a probable joint-venture team to construct its first phase, but that doesn't mean trains will be leaving the station soon. The embattled project still faces lawsuits and questions, even from former supporters."High-speed rail is at a crucial point," says Quentin Kopp, former chairman of the authority. Over the past 18 months, "missteps and violations" of the 2008 Proposition 1A bond measure have changed public opinion, he says.Kopp, who co-authored the bill
Related Links: Wayne E. Jones Named ENR 2013 Award of Excellence Winner New Corps of Engineers Commander Taking Stock Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was in New York City on April 18 to attend ENR's annual Award of Excellence dinner. Before he spoke at the event, Bostick talked with Associate Editor Pam Hunter. Excerpts from the interview appear below. ENR: Like most federal entities, the Corps of Engineers is dealing with a budget crunch. How is the Corps managing its backlog? Bostick: The Corps has a backlog of $60 billion of
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