Costanera Center
Costanera Center is a real estate project located in the municipality of Providencia in the city of Santiago, Chile. It owes its name to that it is situated near the Mapocho river. It consists of a set of four buildings (two of them not built) located at the intersection of Andres Bello Avenue and Nueva Tajamar, a few meters from the Tobalaba station of the Santiago Metro. Its central building, the Great Santiago Tower, has a total area of 128,000 m², has a height of 300 meters including the spiral (300 m to the last of its 62 floors) and is equipped with 24 high-speed elevators that can be reach a maximum of 6.6 meters per second.1 With these characteristics, the Great Santiago Tower becomes the tallest skyscraper in Latin America. Towers 1, 3 and 4 have a height of 175, 175 and 105 meters, respectively. Of the four buildings of the original project, only two were finally built – the Gran Torre Santiago or Tower 2 and Tower 4, while the construction of towers 1 and 3 is still paralyzed since 2009.
The group of buildings, owned by the Cencosud consortium, has a six-story shopping center (opened in June 2012, after they had announced its opening on May 27 of the same year2) and two hotels of five and four stars. Three of the four buildings will be destined to offices. The opening of the shopping center was scheduled for mid-2009; However, the effects of the economic crisis of 2008 led to the decision in January 2009 to paralyze the works until the economic uncertainty was overcome.3 Thus, on December 17, 2009, the continuation of the works was announced. which were reopened gradually from May to December 2012 and the Gran Costanera Tower, which is expected to be operational by 2014. In November of 2010, the Great Santiago Tower surpassed the 200 ms of height in construction, becoming the tallest building of Chile, surpassing to the Titanium Tower the Cover.4 Meanwhile, the 18 of February of 2011, the construction arrived at 226 m high, surpassing the Central Park Towers of Caracas, which until then were the tallest towers in South America.
