‘Princesa Tower' to rise in Puerto Princesa

The city government on Monday said it will push ahead with a project to build a tower structure beside the City Hall that is designed to compete among the world’s known iconic structures. Mayor Lucilo Bayron said a 680-meter structure that they call “Princesa Tower,” to be designed by a private contractor, will be financed by crowd-sourced funding and is hoped to attract more tourists into the city. “Ito ay kikilalaning iconic creation/building sa buong Pilipinas. Makakadagdag ito sa pag-draw ng turista dahil sa distinction na second tallest building in the world. Ayon sa PHIVOLCS (Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology) ang Palawan is the only safe place in the Philippines na maaaring itayo ang ganito kataas na building,” he said. Bayron said it will be constructed as a “landmark feature” adjacent the New City Hall Building in Barangay Tiniguiban. He said he hopes the tower “will be included among the wellknown building structures in the Guinness Book of World Records.” It will be the second highest building to Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and will be like the famous Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, and the Sydney Opera House in Australia, which is two of the world’s most distinctive building structures. Bayron also said it was dur- ing a national convention of the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers (PICE) in the city two years ago when he presented his dream “to build an iconic building in the city.” He said the private contractor who took the challenge to build the “Princesa Tower” is Engr. Rolando Garcia, who competes with the best in the world in engineering designs. “He (Garcia) competes with the best in the world ganoon ang kanyang perspective,” he said, adding the project will replace the previous proposal of a DNAlike structure which is only 135 meters high. Rod Saucelo, executive assis- tant and flagship project manager said it will have a “sky ride” that will be 550-meter high and can accommodate 76 persons. The ride will be slow-moving, he added, to allow them a panoramic view of the city. It will feature an outdoor water fountain, and its facade will have a 176-meter high water curtain that will flow down from the building tower’s upper decks, which will be “the longest manmade” in the world, he added. There will be food courts located on the upper floors, a Zumba area where people can have themselves recorded by drones. and its ground floor will have an open corridor or an open park, he said. The open park at the ground floor will also have a 315-meter x 8-meter semi-circular boardwalk that can accommodate 4,000 to 5,000 tourists at one time. However, Saucelo said no budget has been proposed yet by Garcia, but it will be funded through “crowdsourcing,” the worldwide practice of soliciting donations from a large number of people. “Sa ngayon ay wala pa tayong costing na natatanggap dyan. Hindi pa finalized. Design pa lang ng tower ang meron tayo,” he said. The project’s idea is to let Filipinos all over the world contribute to the construction of the “Princesa Tower.” Saucelo said Garcia is “a world-famous inventor and engineer with projects in 17 countries and holds 17 invention patents, the first-ever achieved by a Filipino. The “Princesa Tower,” will be submitted to the Global Architectural Design Competition to compete with the world’s engineering marvels. In February this year, Palawan News was the first to come out with the story of the iconic tower project in the city. READ RELATED STORY https://palawan-news.com/dnatower- draw- tourists- now- cooking-city-hall/