Underwater Real Estate Coming Soon
Underwater real estate coming soon
By Melissa Wirkus
The land for prime real estate developments is slowly decreasing.
The world is becoming more populated, polluted and crowded than ever before, and developers will have to start to look elsewhere to build real estate.
One place they are looking is the ocean, and the possibilities and technology look promising.
A February 2, 2007 article by Chris Taylor of CNNMoney.com, “Ocean real estate: The next boom?” discusses how we could all be living under water in no time at all.
“We've been promised many things in the world of Tomorrowland: jet packs, flying cars, picnics on the moon. We remember those pledges, ruefully. But with all of our attention on the skies above, we tend to forget about the seas below and another once-popular 21st century prediction: that one day we'll be living on and under the oceans.”
“The idea isn't so far-fetched. As Earth gets increasingly crowded and polluted, some 225 million square miles of prime real estate representing 71 percent of the planet's surface is largely unused. It's remarkable considering the oceans promise plenty of living space, fresh seafood, entertainment, and desalinized water. Surely, technology can make this happen.”
This large amount of the earth’s unused space is prime for real estate; we just have to develop the technology to make life underwater possible.
And although this seems like something out of the latest science fiction novel, it looks to become a reality much faster than we thought.
Developers have already made plans for underwater hotels, and this is after an oceanographer dreamt up plans for a city underwater over a half century ago.
Now two very modern hotel plans have been drawn-up and are set to open sooner than anyone thought.
“The most tangible signs are two altered versions of GM's Hotel Atlantis, at least one of which could be open for business next year.The first is Hydropolis, a $500 million-plus, 220-room hotel under development near Dubai in the Persian Gulf. Billed as the world's first underwater hotel, the Hydropolis will be located, if all goes according to plan, 60 feet below sea level and cost $1,500 a night. Among other amenities, the Hydropolis will also feature a missile defense system to guard against terrorists, a shopping mall, and three bars.”
“Then there's Poseidon Mystery Island, a $200 million development off the coast of Fiji. When it opens in mid-2008, the hotel will be much smaller than Hydropolis and almost twice as expensive to visit. But it does boast something you don't get in Dubai: 24-hour views of one of the world's liveliest coral reefs.”
But obviously these projects are still very much in the works, and there are still a lot of questions to be answered.
But besides underwater hotels, most real estate developments concerning the ocean will be closer to the surface of the water, and closer to the land we love.
“Leading this march to the sea is Dutch designer Koen Olthuis. His firm, Waterstudio, is the first to devote itself entirely to waterborne structures - houses, garages, apartment buildings - and has been hired by the Crown Prince of Dubai to build a sail-in mosque, presumably so the legions of oil-rich seafaring Dubains have somewhere to pray on their way to Hydropolis.”
We will just have to keep track of any further developments to see where the world of ocean real estate takes us.