Article

2005-06-03 International-UN-NGOs

Kofi's next billion $$ scam: $1.2B renovation of UN bldg

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Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-06-03 12:25|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 What next for Don Kofi? Cornering the midtown garbage collection racket?

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-06-03 12:32|| 2005-06-03 12:32|| Front Page Top

#2 Who's the contractor on this job, Kojo?

Posted by tu3031 2005-06-03 12:37|| 2005-06-03 12:37|| Front Page Top

#3 he'd better not try to muscle in on anything more lucrative ... the russian mobs might take offense.

Posted by too true 2005-06-03 12:37|| 2005-06-03 12:37|| Front Page Top

#4 Have to admire his audacity. No need to pay off Pasqua or Galloway or Zhirinovsky this time. A cool $700M profit - minimum. Nice.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-06-03 12:43|| 2005-06-03 12:43|| Front Page Top

#5 Note that these jokers can't even agree on how many square feet the UN bldg actually has. The estimates range from ~1m to over 2M sq ft.

No wonder Bill Clinton wants in on this game.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-06-03 12:45|| 2005-06-03 12:45|| Front Page Top

#6 I suggest the Bolton Plan of renovation

Posted by True German Ally 2005-06-03 13:28|| 2005-06-03 13:28|| Front Page Top

#7 Lots of opprtunity for documents -n- stuff to go 'missing' during this renovation. You know how sloppy those contractors can be...

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2005-06-03 13:30|| 2005-06-03 13:30|| Front Page Top

#8 LOL, TGA. Kofi's new "Bolton Building":
http://www.chemeco.com/NorthDakota%20Outhouse.jpg

Posted by Tom 2005-06-03 13:33|| 2005-06-03 13:33|| Front Page Top

#9 Trump builds a tower 3x as high for 1/3 the cost (and I'm sure Trump's is more extravagent). That means that actually it should be around 1/9 of what they want and probably divide that by 2 (as renovation is probably cheaper than building new). Try and take it out of the $15 billion we're giving for AIDS in Africa, Kofi, if you're sooooooo worried about your precious building. When you get a Senator from Alabama and Donald Trump agreeing on this issue....look out!

Posted by BA">BA 2005-06-03 13:52|| 2005-06-03 13:52|| Front Page Top

#10 Thibaud, where'd you get those square feet #s? If I recall, it seems to me that (again, this is rough estimate from memory) I heard that each of the twin towers were like 1 million square feet (and each floor was like an acre in size). There's no way in he!! the UN building is near that size (110 stories vs. 30 stories)!

Posted by BA">BA 2005-06-03 13:54|| 2005-06-03 13:54|| Front Page Top

#11 If they're going to renovate the existing structure for $1.2 billion, even using Kofinomics that means that there's going to have to be an awful lot of demolition. So we just wait until the demolition contractor is finished and then have the New Yawk Department of Public Safety issue a permanent cease and desist order.

Posted by Matt 2005-06-03 14:02|| 2005-06-03 14:02|| Front Page Top

#12 Heres an Idea, F#ck the U.N. F#ck Coffi,F#ck them all.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2005-06-03 14:03|| 2005-06-03 14:03|| Front Page Top

#13 If Studley's Woody can't show Kofi how to do it, nobody can.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-06-03 14:17|| 2005-06-03 14:17|| Front Page Top

#14 Nice one, Mrs D. Nice joke, that is.

BA: those numbers were from the article.

The U.N.'s Capital Master Plan states that a total of 2,651,000 square feet will be renovated. Assuming that figure to be correct, the per square foot cost would be $452.

But, as reported by the Sun, real estate experts question whether the U.N.'s facilities contain anywhere near that amount of space. According to the U.N.'s website, the organization's headquarters include four main structures comprising 1,029,000 sq ft, as follows:

* Secretariat Building: 39 floors and three subfloors, approximately 500,000 square feet.
* General Assembly Building: Five total floors, approximately 380 ft. by 160 ft., or 304,000 square feet.

* Conference Building: Four stories, approximately 115,000 square feet.

* Dag Hammarskjold Library: Four stories and two sublevels, 219 ft. by 84 ft., total 110,376 square feet.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-06-03 14:31|| 2005-06-03 14:31|| Front Page Top

#15 Ego / turf issues. You inflate the sq footage of everyone's office so that they have bragging rights.

Posted by too true 2005-06-03 14:35|| 2005-06-03 14:35|| Front Page Top

#16 Each WTC tower contained about 5 million sq. ft. of space. In addition there were 7 other buildings in the complex for a grand total of 12 million sq. ft.

It's kind of difficult to estimate renovation costs when the UN can't even decide if it has 1 or 2.6 million sq.ft. As far as I care, stick their butts on an unused cruise ship and let them work on site (and see the effects) of their projects.
Cruise Ships for sale

Posted by ed 2005-06-03 14:42|| 2005-06-03 14:42|| Front Page Top

#17 Doesn't the 1.2Gigabucks include building an entirely new building to house (temporarily...) the Useless Nations while the current building is being renovated? I read that somewhere....

And you have ti factor in the costs of Conferences in Taiwan, Paris, Turkey, to plan the luncheons which will plans the conferences concerning the color of the carpeting.....

Posted by CrazyFool 2005-06-03 14:52|| 2005-06-03 14:52|| Front Page Top

#18 "The United Nations is a mess," the developer said yesterday, "and they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily on this project."

With two bankruptcies under his belt, I'd listen to The Donald. He sure knows how to spend money unnecessarily.

Posted by Raj 2005-06-03 14:57|| 2005-06-03 14:57|| Front Page Top

#19 Don't forget the lobby art.

Posted by anon 2005-06-03 14:57|| 2005-06-03 14:57|| Front Page Top

#20 PissChrist, meet ScheistKofi

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-06-03 22:24|| 2005-06-03 22:24|| Front Page Top

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