SOURCE: BANGKOK POST, Thailand

Real estate developer Grand Canal Land Tuesday unveiled plans for a 125-storey office and hotel tower that would make Bangkok home to the tallest skyscraper in Southeast Asia.

The 18-billion-baht 615-metre “Rama IX Super Tower” is set for completion by 2019 on 73 rai of land in the Grand Rama 9 mixed-use development site near the intersection of Ratchadapisek Road, the company, known as G Land, said at a press conference.

The 320,000-sq-metre “Super Tower” – the name is not final and a naming competition will be held later – is being designed by Architects 49 Ltd. The mixed-use project will offer 90,000 sq metres of office space and house a “six-star” hotel with 260 rooms. Other amenities include an observation tower for tourists and garden on the rooftop of a lower floor.

If completed, the tower would dwarf the tallest building currently in Thailand, the Baiyok II tower, which tops out at 328.4 metres on its 85th floors. The second-tallest structure, to be completed in 2016, is Mahanakhon condominium at 314 metres.

If built today, the tower would be the third-tallest in the world and the highest in the Asean region, planners said. Asean’s current tallest building is the Petronas twin towers in Kuala Lumpur at 375 metres.

G Land chairman Yothin Boondicharern said the tower will anchor the Grand Rama 9 complex, which currently has offices, a shopping mall and residential area. It offers 1.2 million sq metres of land serving 300,000 people a day. The Super Tower’s 90,000 sq metres of office space would be second only to the Empire Tower at 150,000 sq metres.

Planners said Tuesday the project will be accessed by a six-lane private road linking Rama IV and Rachadapisek and lie within 500 metres of an expressway exit and have a direct MRT connection.

They added that the building will be built to the platinum-level certification of the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED).