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Short Stuff: Jeddah Tower · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff Josh Chuck, Jerry
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Dave and Spirit short Stuff.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: That's right, that's my cue. This is about the Jetta
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Tower j E. D. D Ah thanks to Architectural Digest
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: and CNN and how stuff works for this stuff.
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  Speaker 3: But this is the story.
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  Speaker 2: Of if it's finished eventually will be at least for
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: a while, the tallest building in the world.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna make the Bird Khalifa look like poop.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: So let's go back to two thousand and eight.
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  Speaker 2: There's a billionaire investor named Prince Alowed Ben Tallal of
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, and I think his goal.
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  Speaker 3: Was to make the Bird Khalifa look like poop. He
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  Speaker 3: was like, I want to make one taller.
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  Speaker 2: I want to build a city and around it called
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  Speaker 2: the Jetta Economic City. Terrible name, and basically like they
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  Speaker 2: wanted to compete with Dubai, but in Saudi Arabia, right.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Because Dubai is in the UAE. And he wanted to
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  Speaker 1: build the first skyscraper to reach over thirty two hundred
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and eighty feet or higher. And for those of us
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  Speaker 1: in the United States and for our friends in Liberia,
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  Speaker 1: that is a kilometer. So this would be the first
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  Speaker 1: kilometer high building, which is mind bogglingly tall, and he's
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  Speaker 1: doing it baby in two thousand. Well, I guess they
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  Speaker 1: made it up to twenty eighteen.
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  Speaker 3: Before oh no, year. I was thinking feet.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Right, No, no, the year. Yeah, that was a little confusing.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry about that. That's right, especially when you know
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the construction history of the tower. But no, they made
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: it up to twenty eighteen the year. See, I guess
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  Speaker 1: I should have said before they had to halt construction
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: thanks to a bunch of different stuff.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, you know, it's the way he said it
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  Speaker 2: when you said they went all the way up to
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  Speaker 2: twenty eighteen.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Brick by brick, all the way to twenty eighteen, big year.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: So yeah, construction pause in twenty eighteen. We'll talk about
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: why here in a minute. And also, COVID had a
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: big dent in it. The bird Khalifa is the current
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: tallest building, at twenty seven seventeen feet.
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  Speaker 3: Tall the year oh no.
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  Speaker 2: If you're wondering about the eventual kilometer high building, the
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  Speaker 2: Jetta Tower, if you remember our beloved twin towers here
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  Speaker 2: in the United States, it'll be about twice the size
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  Speaker 2: of those which is astonishing to think about.
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  Speaker 1: Also, I mean, for a little closer to home, if
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you don't live in New York, the average two story
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  Speaker 1: houses about twenty to twenty five feet.
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  Speaker 3: Right for comparison, how many big macs.
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  Speaker 1: I looked and I was like, I'm not doing this.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's over.
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  Speaker 2: It was designed both Birge Khalifa and the Jetta Tower
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  Speaker 2: by an American architect named Adrian Smith.
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  Speaker 3: Did not know that, Yeah, and they're both.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's not a copycat of the Bird Khalifa,
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  Speaker 2: but it's definitely some in structure because what Adrian Smith
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: reckoned and figured out was that making a building that
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  Speaker 2: tall as a triangle, as a y shape instead of
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  Speaker 2: a square, instead of a box or a rectangle is
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  Speaker 2: a lot safer for like, you know, he did wind
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  Speaker 2: tunnel testing and stuff like that. It's like, this thing
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  Speaker 2: is gonna meet the wind in a safer way.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it gets awfully windy the higher up you go.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: And if you want to, if you're like wind cheer
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: in buildings, that sounds interesting. I could not recommend more.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: A nineteen ninety five New Yorker article called the fifty
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: nine Story Crisis about when the city Bank. I've talked
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: about it before. I don't know when, but when the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: City Bank building in the seventies was built and occupied
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: and the engineer architect figured out like, oh god, like
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: basically I forgot.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: To carry the one get everyone out of there.
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  Speaker 1: They had to figure out how to shore it up
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  Speaker 1: for a hurricane hit. Oh that was like on its way. Basically.
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  Speaker 1: It's a really really great article.
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  Speaker 2: I guess at the time they would have brought in
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  Speaker 2: Bruce Willis to solve that problem.
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  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I got to read that. That sounds great.
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  Speaker 1: It is so greatly suspenseful. It's just a wonderful article,
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  Speaker 1: one of the best ever.
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  Speaker 3: Awesome. So the Birds Khalifa.
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  Speaker 2: One of the differences is that one tapers in different
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  Speaker 2: stages at different sections.
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  Speaker 3: But the Jetta tower is sort of one big triangle.
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  Speaker 2: It's going to be one continuously tapering tower and literally
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  Speaker 2: sort of piercing the clouds at one point.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw that Adrian Smith was inspired by how
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: palm leaves stick up from the top of a tree
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  Speaker 1: before they unfurl cool and bend over. And I looked
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  Speaker 1: at a picture. I'm like, yep, that looks like the
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  Speaker 1: Jetta tower.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, awesome.
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  Speaker 1: So you want to take a little break and come
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  Speaker 1: back and talk about I don't know, the Jetta Tower
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  Speaker 1: some more.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, let's do it.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: So we're gonna just give you a few nuts and
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  Speaker 2: bolts appropriately about the Jetta Tower. The big showstopper there
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  Speaker 2: will be the observation tower, open air observation tower, which
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  Speaker 2: is terrifying. It'll be a two eighty seven feet They
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  Speaker 2: were gonna have a helipad on it, or it was
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: supposedly supposed to be a helipad, I think, and architects
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  Speaker 2: were like, he can't out here with you can't land
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  Speaker 2: a helicopter. It's on something that high out here. That's
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  Speaker 2: not a good idea.
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  Speaker 1: So like, we'll make it an observation deck. We'll just
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  Speaker 1: tell everybody to ignore the giant h in the circle
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  Speaker 1: on the deck.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, stand in the center of that.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, I don't like heights, but I
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  Speaker 1: would check that out if I ever found myself in Jeta.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Maybe.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, Jeda is actually already a town there
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: on the Red Sea. There was a guy who was
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  Speaker 1: interviewed in this house stuff works article maybe Architectural Digest,
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  Speaker 1: where he said like, this is not a place where
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: you would normally live, which I think is kind of
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  Speaker 1: mean to people who live in Jedda, But I get
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  Speaker 1: his point. It's not like Jeda economic city. But it's
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: claimed to fame, as far as I know, is that
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  Speaker 1: it is the tomb. It holds the tomb of Eve,
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  Speaker 1: Eve of Garden of Eden fame. And they think that yes,
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  Speaker 1: and they think that Jeta is the is a derivation
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  Speaker 1: of Jada, which means grandmother. Okay, that's some Raiders of
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: the Lost Ark stuff right there.
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  Speaker 3: Wow, all right, my mind is kind of blown.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it blew mine too, and I just could not
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  Speaker 1: share it.
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  Speaker 3: All right, this might blow your mind too.
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  Speaker 2: The Jeda Tower, at least according to its original plans,
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  Speaker 2: who knows what's going to end up happening. We'll have
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  Speaker 2: about eighty t eighty thousand tons of steel, fifty nine
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  Speaker 2: ultra high speed elevators, eight escalators, seven double decker elevators.
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  Speaker 2: I think if you're going up to that observatory in terrace,
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  Speaker 2: you're going to go at about thirty two feet per second,
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  Speaker 2: which is pretty fast. And it's the mixed use space.
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  Speaker 2: It's gonna the bottom third is going to be office space.
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  Speaker 2: It's gonna be a luxury hotel, and then the one
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  Speaker 2: hundred and sixty seven highest floors, which sounds crazy to say,
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  Speaker 2: will be apartments. And of course I'm sure some very
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  Speaker 2: rich sheeic or somebody will own that penthouse at the
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  Speaker 2: crown of the whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I found some pictures, some renderings of it, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, meh, I mean, you could find the exact
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: same thing in Miami or Rio or it just looks
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: like whatever. It's Yeah, you know, I mean, the tower
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  Speaker 1: itself is going to be amazing, but yeah, the it's just,
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  Speaker 1: you know, when you have that much space and that
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  Speaker 1: much wealth, there's only so much you can do.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, agreed.
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  Speaker 2: The original name was a Kingdom Tower, and they broke
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: ground in April of twenty thirteen. It took more than
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  Speaker 2: a year just to lay the foundation, and they have
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  Speaker 2: these concrete pilings ten feet in diameter, longer than a
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  Speaker 2: football field, that go down very very very deep into
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  Speaker 2: the earth. And because of these delays, you know, they
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  Speaker 2: had to stop in twenty seventeen when there was a
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  Speaker 2: political crisis in Saudi Arabia that was a move to
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  Speaker 2: sort of consolidate power and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
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  Speaker 2: had a big anti corruption purge where he arrested eleven
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  Speaker 2: Saudi princes, one of which was the financial backer of
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  Speaker 2: the Jetta Tower and some of the partners in the
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  Speaker 2: Saudi bin Laden group. So because of that and COVID,
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  Speaker 2: it halted for a lot of years, and I think
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  Speaker 2: like five years. And I was watching this YouTube video
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  Speaker 2: where they basically said, like, when that happens in a
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  Speaker 2: place like this, like you usually tear it down and
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  Speaker 2: start over, because you know, sand damage, salt damage, just
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  Speaker 2: corrosion to steal and corrosion to the concrete probably makes
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  Speaker 2: it very unsafe move forward. But apparently they had the
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  Speaker 2: foresight to install these underground sensors in those pilings and
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  Speaker 2: they could get readings that apparently said like we're all
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  Speaker 2: good down here.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. That is some foresight. You were telling
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  Speaker 1: me about that, and you hadn't got to the part
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  Speaker 1: where they had the sensors, And I was like, please
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  Speaker 1: tell me that they are not just building on top
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  Speaker 1: of an unsafe structure or they're going to have to
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  Speaker 1: tear the whole thing down and start over. But nope,
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  Speaker 1: you really came through with the great positive twist at
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  Speaker 1: the end.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Well, they eventually restarted after COVID. I think in twenty
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: twenty three. Of September twenty twenty three is when they
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  Speaker 2: finally restarted. They said in twenty twenty three it would
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  Speaker 2: be another four or five years, But in twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 2: just over a year ago, sixty of the one hundred
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  Speaker 2: and sixty seven floors have been built, and this year
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  Speaker 2: in January they passed just recently the eighty floor mark.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're almost halfway there. There was they're thinking
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: that they might be done in the next couple of years.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know, but I mean I did. The
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  Speaker 2: YouTube video also said that they are going at like
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  Speaker 2: breakneck pace.
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  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, that's you don't really want to do that
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  Speaker 1: when you're building the world's tallest building.
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  Speaker 3: But no, I agree.
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  Speaker 1: Also a little fact, if you're like Prince Muhammed ben Solomon,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: he sounds kind of familiar. Yeah. When he did that
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: anti corruption purgo's the same time that he ordered Jamal Kashogi,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the coltunist and dissident murdered.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: That's right, Yet he was still welcomed into our White House.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Wow, so you got anything else.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: I have nothing else. We'll see what happens with the
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Jetta Tower. I mean, it looks like it'll be finished,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: you know. I don't know about four or five years
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: from twenty twenty three, but we'll see.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And sorry to all the people who saw this
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: short stuff title Jetta Tower and were like they better
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: not bring the White House into this short stuff is out.
• 11:00
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