Higher, grander, costlier

• Source: The Global Times
• [22:17 May 18 2009]
• Comments

The tower was designed to be a central feature of the development zone in Longbao, Chongqing. Its main investor was Chongqing Wanzhou Longbao Chengtou Corporation, under the management committee of the immigrants development zone in Longbao, and work began in 2005.

However, when construction of the zone was halted, the investment firm was relocated to the development zone in Yudong, Chongqing, and the money dried up.

“The firm is more than 100 million yuan in debt and we can't afford to finance the construction of the monument,” Hong Weijun, head of the Yudong zone told the Xinhua News Agency last year.

“Some senior officials just don't seem to care what happens to taxpayers' money,” Zhang told the Global Times.

“We have to decide if these buildings can ever recoup their initial investments,” he said.
The area where the Pearl Tower was supposed to stand as a symbol of the city and a tourism attraction is now almost deserted.

“We spent four years trying to attract investors, but we failed,” Hong told Xinhua.

Lack of investment is a problem also being experienced by one of Beijing's best known structures – the National Stadium, or Bird's Nest. The stadium lost its dome in 2004 after some academicians at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering wrote a letter to the top management, claiming the cost of the Olympic project was rocketing in pursuit of form, according to Wang Jun's book.

Cost remains an issue after the Games. Stadium supervisor Zhang Hengli revealed this May that by receiving about 3.5 million visitors, the Bird's Nest had earned 210 million yuan revenue in six months.

But little progress has yet been made in recouping the 3.5 billion yuan building costs. Nor does anyone seem willing to occupy a venue that costs 70 million yuan a year just to maintain.

Although the Beijing Guo'an Football Club was originally slated to move in, it pulled out after calculating it would have to sell 50,000 tickets per match just to break even. A further 200 million to 300 million yuan was also needed for modifications to the building and ancillary facilities, Kunming Daily reported in January.

The Newsweek report described the Bird's Nest as an “empty bowl” where tourists go to pay 50 yuan for “happy snaps.” It also said the number of visitors had fallen from 80,000 a day in October to 10,000 now.

With such a high-profile building struggling to survive, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Tongguan project is facing criticism.

“The sculpture is being built in the Loess Plateau area, so people won't even be able to get a clear view of the Yellow River,” and unnamed Web user wrote in a blog.

“It would be much more meaningful to spend the money on protecting cultural relics,” the person said.

According to Zhang, the problem is that people in power do not care about the public's money.
“They care only about how eye-catching each building will be, not what it can do for the people.”

Wang Jun wrote in his book, “We still cannot deny that the really great cities are those that people can live in and can live better.”