Shanghai Tower resolves issues that delayed opening

The Shanghai Tower, China’s tallest skyscraper, said it has resolved fire-safety issues that have delayed its full opening for 18 months.

Fire inspections have been completed for all of the 632-meter building, located in Shanghai’s Lujiazui financial district, except for two upper areas that house a hotel, Shanghai Tower Construction & Development Co. said in a statement dated Dec. 20. It didn’t give an opening date for the building’s full opening.

The tower is the latest addition to a city skyline that already boasts some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers including the 492-meter Shanghai World Financial Center. While the lowest five floors were opened in April, various technical issues have pushed the 125-story building’s full opening well past its original mid-2015 schedule. In May, a glass plate fell from the upper floors while being replaced and injured a passerby, leading to longer inspections.

“Being the first property project more than 600 meters high in China, there are many technical difficulties,” the operator said in the statement. “The existing inspection standards don’t apply to some new techniques and materials used in the tower, so we had to advance the inspection work step by step.” Bloomberg